


Diagonally

by Lilian



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Crossdressing, Groundhog Day, Humor, M/M, Romance, Secret Snarry Swap 2017, Suicidal Thoughts, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-13
Updated: 2017-12-13
Packaged: 2019-02-12 15:14:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 22,841
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12962190
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lilian/pseuds/Lilian
Summary: Severus wants to buy a shop. Time doesn't agree.





	Diagonally

**Author's Note:**

> You don’t need to see the movie to understand this fic, but it’s not too horrible, so check it out if you want to. :) The places mentioned in this fic are (almost) all from the canon, at least according to the Harry Potter Wiki. 
> 
> **Beta:** DacClarissa. Thank you so much, sweetie! All remaining mistakes are mine.
> 
> Prompt 18 from alisanne: Groundhog Day fic! Postwar, an acquitted Snape withdraws from the world. When he begins reliving the same day over and over he figures he's been cursed, but can't get to the bottom of it. All he knows is that he keeps running into Potter.

Severus woke up on a Thursday. Not just any Thursday, he decided: this was the first Thursday of a new period of his life: he would be Severus Snape, formerly Ex-convict, Ex-Death Eater, Ex-Spy-For-The-Light, Owner of an Order of Merlin: First Class, but all that was unimportant now because hopefully, he’d soon become the owner of a potions shop on Knockturn Alley. 

He just had to proposition Mrs. Bluefeather, the current owner of the shop he’d set his sights on. He was fairly certain he could talk her into selling; she was in her hundred and tens, and surely, she had enough of managing the business for well over a good six decades. Although Mrs. Bluefeather was famously intolerant towards people more talented and younger than she (Severus thought he was both), he trusted his silver tongue and his years as the Head of Slytherin to work to his advantage. 

All in all, he was in a good mood, he assessed as he dressed. This was not so surprising nowadays, ten years after the Fall of The Dark Lord, but it was something he still kept conscious count of. The obtaining and the subsequent managing of the shop presented a challenge, but just the healthy amount of one that inspired Severus, not like some previous times in his life, where not standing up to a challenge would have meant the end of his life. 

He got dressed and walked down to the pub area of The White Wyvern, where he’d stayed the night, and planned on continuing to do so as long as it took to talk Mrs. Bluefeather into an agreement. 

"Good morning, Mr. Snape. Are you having breakfast with us? There are fresh scones in the kitchen, Greta just got them out of the oven, lovely and warm, would you like some?” The innkeeper appeared at his side, smiling jovially, keeping her wand in the air, seemingly only waiting for Severus’s agreement to summon a menu. 

Severus nodded, answering to her greeting, and let her chat idly about the weather and their selection of breakfast goods. He ordered a Full English Breakfast, which he rarely ate, and endured Mrs. Fell chatting to him as she served his meal, and even complimented the food begrudgingly because it was indeed lovely. The ever-smiling wife of the innkeeper bid him a good day after he finished, and Severus took off on the cobblestoned street leading to Diagon Alley, which was nowhere near its frantic madness now, in early October, when the school-starting crowds had already passed. 

There were some tourists, shoppers, and others around, of course, but Severus didn’t need to step around or avert his course; he was able to walk straight to Gringotts. 

"How may we help you today, sir?” the goblin asked, peering down at him from his high chair at the reception area. 

"I require an official statement of my financial situation. These are the keys to my vaults.” He presented them, one gold (the Princes’) and one silver (which held his secret inheritance from Dumbledore). 

"Very well, Master Snape.” The goblin muttered as he registered whatever needed to be written down into the huge book in front of him, then flicked a soft chime on his desk. "Greenphok will show you to a private waiting area. The procedure you required will take no more than half an hour.”

Severus inclined his head and followed the goblin who appeared at his side. 

He hadn’t had to wait longer than a few minutes, which he spent observing the newly furbished waiting room, which Severus never visited before. It was grandiose, richly decorated with golden dragons and mountains of coins, as the goblin traditions dictated. Severus never cared much for gold (maybe a subconscious Slytherinesque trait), but even so, he had to admit, the whole room gave off the impression of serious wealth. 

As for his own wealth, which he’d got written out on a neatly inked piece of paper, it was not inconsiderable. What with he saved at Hogwarts, Dumbledore’s later discovered inheritance and the last five years of fruits of his hard work, he should be able to offer a fair price for the shop, and a good amount left to start his business. People were in dire need of a good Potioneer, and he was very good indeed. 

He thought about subtly checking out the other shops which sold anything potion-related in the area (there were quite a few); even if it would certainly be cheaper to order from other companies, he couldn’t help but be curious about his competition. He prepared a few drafts of possible ingredient- and equipment-selling individuals and business from all over London, but he didn’t want to put too much work into it until he was sure he’d get the shop. 

Mrs. Bluefeather’s Apothecary was under Knockturn Alley 3, just a few steps from the corner of Horizont Alley. It was sitting there between an abandoned hairdresser’s and a dentist’s office in its small, shining glory. 

However, as Severus stepped on Horizont Alley, he immediately noticed the young couple walking on the opposite side of the pavement, coming towards him, and his eyes connected with the shorter wizard’s. 

Potter. It was Harry Potter. Severus hadn’t seen him in years, certainly not in person. He no longer resembled either one of his parents, perhaps because by now, he was almost a decade older than they ever were. Sometimes it was crazy to think about it, Lily and James, dead in their early twenties, but the world moved on, and Severus was more than twice their age now. 

Potter had got new glasses, which suited his face much better than his old spectacles, and he had comfortable-looking Muggle-wear on, which was a new trend in younger Wizarding circles, who often abandoned their robes in the summer and, according to his example, even in autumn. His companion was Granger, whom Severus had seen a portrait of in the newspaper recently. She still had the same bushy hair and the overall energetic way she talked with her whole body, catching up on the situation a second later when Potter stopped dead in his tracks upon recognizing him. 

His expression of stunned surprise soured Severus’s mood unexpectedly. _Oh, fantastic, here we go with the dramatic scenes_. It happened almost every time he bumped into any of his old students. Awkward glances, at him, then left and right, looking for a way out of the situation, not subtly trying to find out if he recognized them, then the inevitable halfhearted greetings, then the ever-so-untruthful inquiries about how he was. It depended, of course, slightly on the situations or the students themselves: Slytherins were more likely to come over to him, Hufflepuffs usually looked away or seemed more genuine in their well-wishes than the rest. Eighty percent of the Gryffindors just sneered, or gave very blunt indications of having seen him but making a show of ignoring him completely afterward. 

Potter, along with his long-time friend, moved closer to him after the initial stop. 

“Professor!” Granger exclaimed as she plastered a more or less honest smile on her face. “Good to see you up and about! It’s been--”

She probably remembered the last time they exchanged words, with Severus still recovering from the snake bite in Hogwarts. 

“Years.” Severus finished her sentence with a snap. Her brow furrowed, the smile slipping away. Why, did she imagine him getting nicer with the years that passed them by? 

He turned slightly and looked at Potter with hardened eyes. He wanted to give the impression of being prepared to fight, both verbally and magically. Who ever knew with Potter, after all? 

The man stared back at him, mirroring his closed-off expression. They held each other’s gaze for several tense seconds, until Potter nodded, the motion almost imperceptible. Severus raised his eyebrows mockingly but blinked back at him and, with that, they both moved out of each other’s way, continuing their journey. 

Severus let the stiffness dissipate from his shoulders. All in all, it could have gone a lot worse. 

He’d been shaken out of his thoughts of Potter as he stumbled on one of the crooked stones in the street. Despite the undignified motion, he didn’t fall, and neither Potter nor anyone other than a young girl standing in the shadow of a house noticed him ridiculously flailing his arms to keep his balance, but it annoyed him nonetheless. He was usually not clumsy. 

*

Mrs. Bluefeather had been busy with customers as Severus arrived at the shop – his step into the place was signaled with a soft chime, and the old witch nodded his way automatically as she consulted with another person. Severus didn’t mind the wait – there were two other people in there besides him and the woman Mrs. Bluefeather had been talking to; one of them, an elderly man, was rocking slightly back and forth on his toes and the other, a middle-aged witch, seemed to examine the contents of some Pepperup bottles. 

Severus walked around the small space patiently, taking everything in, drawing conclusions and voicing questions inside his mind about the state of the bottles, the quality of the Wolfsbane, and the way the common remedies were organized. He already had about ten ideas how to make the whole interior more logically arranged. 

It took a good half an hour until Mrs. Bluefeather had served every customer before turning to him.

“Well, well, if it isn't Severus Snape himself,” Mrs. Bluefeather said with a slight sneer in her voice.

Severus may not have been a well-liked figure amongst Potioneers, but it was a small community, and they all recognized (and in some cases, respected) each other. 

“Mrs. Bluefeather.” He nodded, imagining how Lucius used to behave and effectively charmed old ladies at his banquets. He gave a slight bow. 

“What are you here for, boy?” the woman asked impatiently. She grabbed a blue dotted cloth and started wiping down her counter. “Got Tendosynovitis, can’t brew your own?”

“I’m in excellent health, thank you for asking,” Severus answered pleasantly, still channeling Malfoy. Inside, he thought of a few things he could have said instead. “How do you do?” 

The old witch just scoffed, attacking a spot she wished to clean with a vehemence that belied her silver hair. 

“Just dandy. Don’t get Former Death Eaters around here that much, it became a proper neighborhood under Minister Kingsley.”

Severus straightened his shoulders. He got this attitude a few times when he went out in Wizarding society. That was one of the reasons he didn’t go out much, actually. Plus, he hated people. 

“As you might recall, it was also Minister Kingsley who awarded me with an Order of Merlin, First Class,” he replied smoothly. 

The old woman muttered something under her breath but, when she looked up, her face was blank, even though Severus could have carved into stone with her gaze. 

“How may I assist you today, sir?” she asked, and her switch to the polite salesclerk’s personality confused Severus so, he looked over his shoulder to see if another customer had wandered into the shop. 

When it became clear that they were still alone, Severus decided to get to the point.

“I was hoping you’d consider my proposition. I would like to buy your shop.” 

Her faked calmness was gone as soon as it came.

“With myself still in it?! You’d better kill me, then, and pry the documents out of my cold dead fingers!” 

Severus bit his tongue. Lucius. He was Lucius.

“I haven’t mentioned a figure yet.” 

Mrs. Bluefeather spat on the floor. 

“I don’t take filthy blood-money.” 

Severus had been called a lot of things throughout his life. He _was_ a murderer, that was only a fact. He brushed the insult away. At this moment, he was also a moderately wealthy man who wanted something. 

“Surely, you’d not want this place to be shut down after your passing. It’s my understanding, and do correct me if I’m wrong, none of your grandchildren are interested in the art of potion-making. I could make sure your legacy lives on.” 

The witch threw the cloth at the counter rather aggressively. 

“How dare you!” 

Severus ignored her and forced even more honey into his voice.

“It would be nice to live comfortably after such a long time spent with managing this shop all alone. 

Just take a look at my offer, and we can work out the details later.” 

“Get out!” 

He pulled out the slip they drafted him at Gringotts and sent it flying to the witch with a flick of his wand. 

“Have a good day, Mrs. Bluefeather. I’ll visit tomorrow.”

He stepped out of the shop and down the three crooked steps, feeling slightly miffed about the whole experience. He thought he saw some movement from the corner of his eye, just where a shadowy alcove darkened the warmer lights coming out of the shop. It was probably a rat or a cat; if he got the papers signed, he’d have to do something with that bit of the street. It lay between the shop and its neighbor, a hair salon – but since the latter had an ‘under new management’ sign on the window, Severus thought the issue would either be solved by them or himself. If Mrs. Bluefeather could be persuaded. 

It went worse than he envisioned – Severus reflected on the scene half an hour later, as he was waiting for his lunch at The Drunken Duck. On the other hand, he knew the deal he had prepared was good. That much money swayed a lot of people. Morals, in Severus experience, never held out too long when Galleons were involved. 

Having eaten his meal, Severus relaxed in his seat and wondered what he should do with his afternoon. He was rubbish with free time, ever since he graduated. Going back to the inn and reading the _Potions Weekly_ , which he had brought himself, seemed a waste, especially since it’d been quite long since he last had a day to spend outside and with so many shopping opportunities around. He decided to just follow his feet and see where it took him, get to know the neighborhood. 

Leaving The Drunken Duck, he started to inspect his surroundings. There was a Quidditch shop, another good-for-nothing place that sold similar knick-knacks, things Severus considered to be games for children, and of course, at the end of the street lay the famous Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes, the place the ex-professor hurriedly walked by, shuddering. 

There was an apothecary just down the street, one that hadn’t been standing there when Severus was still in school. He had been mildly curious as to what could be found inside, and between that and the fake-looking small park that led into Carkitt Market, there really was no choice. 

Except, of course, just as he approached the establishment, Granger stepped out of it, toe to toe with who else, Harry Potter. 

The boy immediately found his gaze, as if by driven by a magnet. His face twitched a bit, and Severus wanted to duck behind something before Granger looked up, just for Potter to seem crazy and untrustworthy as he tried to explain he was there. Alas, nothing around. Not even a skinny tree. 

Severus steeled himself, not wanting to talk to them, and realizing at the same time that he most certainly had to talk to them. Potter interrupted him rudely, as usual. 

“Professor.”

Granger looked up from the brown paper bag she was trying to fit into her backpack. 

Severus bit back a _‘What now?’_ and instead he muttered the brat’s name back. Granger rolled her eyes not so subtly in the background as Potter came closer to him. 

“So what are you doing here? I thought you never went out anymore, except for the Malfoys’ New Year’s banquet.” 

Severus looked Potter in the eye. He was still the taller, although Potter had grown a bit. He clearly hadn’t learned proper manners in the last eight years, though. 

“I was quite certain this shopping area wasn’t under your command, Potter, or have I missed a sign? Shouldn’t you have a statue somewhere, by the way? _‘Oh, Our Saint and Selfless Savior?’_ ” 

Potter flushed, and the reddish tint of his otherwise dark skin had been a pleasant surprise to Severus. It looked much better on Potter in the daylight, out of the Dungeon’s (and the Ministry’s) artificial lighting. Actually, a lot of things looked quite good on Potter (his cardigan, his glasses, his full lips), that is, if you disregarded his whole… personality. 

“No. I was just curious—” Potter started after visibly swallowing down his pride.

“It’s my business, Potter.” Severus finished the uncomfortable mess that their conversation brought. He stepped around Potter and Granger, moving swiftly to the door of the apothecary. “Good day!” 

Inside, he fumed a bit. How many times was he going to run into Potter today? Why did the bloody Gryffindors have to choose _this_ day to take care of their shopping? Hadn’t they got a day job? Oh right, Potter didn’t. The _Prophet_ reported it when he quit the Auror Force weeks ago, and Severus hated the fact that he remembered that. 

“How may I help you, sir?” a feminine voice asked cheerfully. Severus found her in the corner by the grasshopper cases, dried crickets in her hand. The young woman seemed vaguely familiar. 

As it turned out, he wasn’t wrong.

“Professor Snape!” she all but shouted, dropping her charge and coming forward to shake his hand. “My word, it’s like a proper Hogwarts reunion! You wouldn’t believe who was here just a second ago, Harry Potter, _The_ Harry Potter! Who would have thought so, that scrawny little first-year, defeating You-Know-Who, but he’s proper grown-up now! A gentleman, if I say! I wouldn’t mind him, knockin’ on my door, whatever the _Prophet_ says!”

Oh, Severus knew just what the _Prophet_ said.

“I’m sorry,” he murmured when he could get a word in, not meaning it the slightest. “I don’t recall your…”

“Oh, don’t worry, Tina Stubbs, Hufflepuff, ’83.” The woman smiled at him. “I was in your Advanced Potions class.”

Right, she was. Longer-haired and pimple-ridden. Back then, she didn’t really smile at him. Or talk to him without request. Merlin, Severus hated these meetings. 

He took something off the shelf to his left, blindly. What a shame it was, too. This apothecary looked much better equipped than Slug & Jiggers, even at first glance. 

Tina Stubbs waved her wand over the item and said in one breath, “That’ll be 2.64 Galleons. Do you think he’s really gay, though? He was together with that Granger girl just now, and they seemed rather chummy.” 

_Fucking hell_. Severus thought, handing the money over as quickly as he could. He only hummed in response. 

“It could be just the media, I reckon. They’re always looking for a big story. Most people like both, innit? But it’s more interesting to say he only prefers the blokes now. Here’s your change.”

“Keep it,” Severus barked as he turned around and skulked out of the building as quickly as he could.

Outside, he sought out the first somewhat secluded place he could find, behind another house, next to a huge rubbish bin. He stood there for a few minutes, wondering how could people be so unpleasant. 

He looked down at what he’d bought when he gathered enough power to step out of his hiding place and face the world again. It was a sparkly Christmas ornament. He snorted. It went into the trash. 

*

His next stop was the Second Hand Bookshop. He remembered, belatedly, Draco’s upcoming birthday. After looking around for a couple of seconds, he completely understood how the shop was broken into different sections and, as usual, his feet took him instinctively to the potion-y side. 

Severus had a sudden inspiration of what he should get for Draco, and looked at what the fashion section of the shop had to offer. He found himself perusing the old manuscripts later, and then time flew by as he grabbed tome after tome, inspecting them, reading about interesting discoveries, experiments, and theories.

There was another bookshop a few buildings over, one of the customers told Severus as he muttered to himself about the poor selection of pre-Balthazar literature, so he relocated to the bigger, shinier bookshop, where he quickly fell into an autobiography he’d wanted to read for ages. 

Similar to the experience of coming up from underwater, his attention refocused as he heard a commotion a few rows over.

He wasn’t even surprised it was Potter. Someone stopped him to talk about defeating Voldemort. Severus’s stomach twisted. Potter muttered something he couldn’t hear but glanced around just in time to see the scowl that took over Severus's face. 

He shot Potter a few dark looks as the younger man’s words carried over the bookshelves.

“…a joint effort, really. Not only me…”

Severus grabbed the autobiography and quickly paid. This really wasn’t a good day, Potter-wise. He considered going into the children’s section, which seemed like a good hiding place, but perhaps backing into the medical section was a sign enough. 

“Snape.” Potter turned up next to him just a few minutes later, after all those nonverbal, very easily understandable messages Severus had shot him across the bookshop, as it seems, completely unnecessarily. “I’m sorry about earlier. How are you?” 

Severus hated this kind of small talk. He had also hated this man for a better part of his life, or at least he’d convinced himself pretty well that he did. Things were fine like that. Undisturbed, they ought to remain that way. He didn’t need to let go of his old demons; there was no point in forgiving Potter, no point being civil to him, not when they were unlikely to meet more than five more times during the course of their lives. No change necessary.

“Fine, Potter. Everything is going swimmingly. This day is especially warm, loads of sunshine, birds twittering, lovely time for a stroll.” He tried to keep a straight face, but it probably didn’t matter much when his voice was dripping with irony. ( _No children around, except for yourself_ , he wanted to add, but he didn’t want a scene.) “I’m assuming the same is true for you, so let’s not waste each other’s time anymore. Good night,” he rattled off, gave Potter his best hateful-teacher expression, and stormed off and stepped behind another set of heavy bookshelves. He was not running away, and he refused to be unsettled by that little whelp’s presence. He pulled out another book, reading its contents, then reading it again, because he only ran his eyes over the first time trying to sense without looking up whether Potter came after him. 

“Ah, I can see you’re busy. Umm, catch you later, then?” 

_Not-bloody-likely_ , Severus thought, but aloud, he just said, “Hmm. Bye.”

Potter did go away then, everyone praise Merlin. 

Severus settled into a big plushy chair, which was provided for the readers and which looked absolutely ridiculous, but wore a sign that asked not to be transfigured. It was comfortable, at least, and Severus got completely sucked into a 16th century witch’s research which attempted (and failed, in several very interesting and gruesome ways) to give men and women the ability to carry their embryos outside of the womb. 

The book was barely a hundred pages long, the 19th part of a series that dealt with what was idiotically dubbed “our elders, who messed with our world’s natural order,” and the anthologist who collected them clearly thought they were bonkers, as he wrote multiple times, “Do not attempt to buy into these halfwit-ideas.” Severus was enraptured, however. The witch’s research was thorough, her hypothesis well thought out, her experiments intriguing. Severus was sure he would have wanted to work with this potioneer, Agneska Wachnovich, had she been alive in his time. Maybe, if that were the case, she would have been one of his professors or mentors at university. 

He was so busy imagining his might-have-been conversations with this Agneska Wachnovich, he’d completely forgotten about Potter by the time he bought the slim paper as well (purely out of sentimental value, as he’d just read the whole thing and he could remember all its fascinating details).

Outside, he only had to take two steps and Potter was there again, like an annoying puppy. Or herpes. 

“I have an urgent engagement,” Severus said, not even waiting for Potter to finish forming his greeting. 

Severus did not, in fact, have any engagements. The last time he’d willingly met someone was well over five months ago. He simply thought he’d have a pint, while Potter surely would get bored and consequently leave. It was well past teatime and Potter, unlike some, didn’t live on Diagon Alley. 

He looked around the pub he stepped into, the patrons and bartenders. Drunkards, shady figures, youngsters huddled together in smaller groups. The design was nothing spectacular; everything seemed to be a few decades old, but in that homely, lived-in way, and it was not as if Severus cared too much about internal decorations. The most important thing was, nobody seemingly recognized him and vice versa. 

Their cider was bearable. Severus nursed it for a while, leisurely flipping through his books. 

Some thirty-odd minutes later, he walked out of the establishment, wondering if he should buy supper somewhere or if he could trust the inn where he stayed not to mess up sandwiches very badly. 

Potter was leaning against the opposite house’s wall, hands in his pockets. Severus started to really lose patience. He didn’t want to know what whimsical idea made Potter feel that it was this important that they speak to each other. Severus had told him, clearly enough, that they were done, and that they didn’t owe anything to each other. Even if it was eight years ago, Potter was an adult now, he should have been taught how to read between the lines by now. 

“Snape,” Potter said, all the same. 

Severus waited exactly fifteen seconds for him to get on with it, out of respect for Albus and Lily. When Potter failed to utter anything else in that time frame, Severus looked him in the eye. 

“It seems that you’re stalking me, Potter. May I remind you that such harassment is in fact considered a crime in Wizarding society these days? Now, is there anything threatening your life at this moment, or do you have some sort of medical emergency you’d need a Potions master for? 

He stopped for a moment, giving Potter time to agree if that was the case. Potter only stared back at him blankly. 

“In that case, leave. me. alone.” 

He took off down the street, hackles raised, looking resolutely ahead.

Arriving back at The White Wyvern, he ordered a few sandwiches from Mrs. Fell and showered quickly. He munched on them as he reread an article of the _Potions Weekly_ , decorating the margins of the paper with his comments. 

After finishing that and the sandwiches, brushing his teeth and using the toilet, he slipped into bed. He emptied his mind and fell asleep. 

*

Severus wakes up, feeling much the same as the previous day. He wonders how much luck he will have with Mrs. Bluefeather today. He walks down from the hostel area to the quarter of the pub where they serve breakfast until ten. He feels a strange déjà vu as he passes a wizard that he saw sitting in the same place the day before. _If one thing can be arranged_ , he prays to a nonexistent deity, _never let me become one of those people who have reserved seats in a drinking establishment_. 

Mrs. Fell appears as he settles into his chair from yesterday. For the other wizard, it must have been a drunken habit; for him, it was a practiced position. He can see all the exits from his seat, and the entrance to the kitchen. 

“Good morning, Mr. Snape. Are you having breakfast with us? There are fresh scones in the kitchen, Greta just got them out of the oven, lovely and warm, would you like some?” the innkeeper asks. 

Severus’s head fills with sirens and he glances around covertly. Everything seems familiar, not just the innkeeper’s words. 

“I would like to try out those scones, yes,” he says slowly, looking the woman deep in the eyes. Is this a signal to alert him to a dangerous situation? Are these just the exact words she said every morning? Not very imaginative, but it is possible that this Greta person always has fresh scones, and his host only forgot to think of something original. Perhaps people only spend single nights here; perhaps she’s just not very bright. No reason for Severus to become paranoid. 

Still, he puts his eventually arriving (and indeed, fresh-looking) scones through a thorough testing. Five spells and a drop of antivenin later, he bites into the things, but his appetite is mostly ruined by his growing suspicion. Everything is quiet and ordinary, with something setting off Severus’s internal sensors just the same. Soon, he’s out on the street, the raspberry speckled things forgotten behind him. 

Severus realizes what’s wrong halfway to Mrs. Bluefeather’s shop. The people around him are all the same. It is the fat wizard, the short woman, the Chinese tourists that were all there yesterday. 

He turns around in the middle of Diagon Alley. Some people are familiar, some not at all, some vaguely so, as in a dream. Severus pinches his arm. He goes back to The White Wyvern. 

There’s nothing immediately suspicious there. His plate has been cleaned away, but the innkeeper’s wife gives him the same wide-mouthed grin that she gifted him with yesterday. 

Severus goes back to his room and looks around everywhere, casting several charms on the furniture, the walls… No malicious intent anywhere. Not any sign of other spells besides the ones that clean and maintain such a space. 

He goes down again. The wizard he noticed in the morning has disappeared, but he left behind yesterday’s paper. The fool, why isn’t he reading the more recent news? Severus scans the headlines, but just like yesterday, there is nothing that catches his eye. His next idea is to try today’s paper, and he billows purposefully over to Carkitt Market and asks for Friday’s paper. 

The middle-aged man squints at him. 

“Last Friday’s, sir?”

“No, today’s, obviously.”

The man blinks.

“Today’s Thursday, sir.” He lays the same _Prophet_ before him, the one Severus left in the inn, the one declaring that there is nothing special about this day, besides some speculation about the next Muggle Prime Minister. 

“Hmmm,” Severus comments, and leaves. His mind is churning. Is this some sort of a joke? He runs into Gringotts and stands in front of the same goblin. 

“How may we help you today, sir?” the goblin asks. 

“I was here yesterday,” Severus says, his voice brooking no argument. 

The goblin stares and nods slowly. “I see. Which of my colleagues handled your case?” 

Severus eyes twitch. “ _You_ did.”

The goblin scoffs. “I’m afraid I don’t remember,” he mutters, flipping through his book. “What time did you come in?” 

“Around ten a.m.” Severus stares at the book, willing it to reveal his truth. He couldn’t have dreamed up such a detailed day. Predictions of the divination kind (however ridiculous that sounds) take less time as well, _or_ if it had spanned a whole day, there would be some aftereffects. At least a headache. He feels fine, physically. 

“Must have been a fluke of memory, Master Snape,” the goblin concludes. Mistakenly. “What service do you require of us today?” 

Severus holds back a colorful spate of expletives. 

He storms out of the bank towards the shop, and then, of course, bloody Potter comes his way. 

“What did you do?” Snape shouts at him from afar. “What the hell did you do?”

The surprise is too genuine to be faked on Potter’s (and Granger’s) face. 

“Snape? What’s going on?”

Severus doesn’t stop until he’s completely before him, until his hands are twisted in the same burgundy cardigan Potter was wearing yesterday. 

“I know _you_ did something. ’Fess up,” he tells him, rather calmly, considering the circumstances. 

Potter wipes his spit off his forehead and shoots a questioning look at Granger. 

“Do you have any idea what he’s…” 

Severus pushes him away. No point in trying to deal with lying dunderheads. 

“No problem,” Severus barks out as he goes. “I’ll figure it out, Potter. I always do.” 

*

Inside the shop, it’s the same three people, although the old wizard balancing on his toes is missing. Couldn’t they get all the people to agree to the ruse? This must be one of the Weasleys’ idea, it reeks of their stupid sense of ‘humor’. 

But then, just a few minutes into Severus vibrating off the ingredients, the old wizard arrives. He stands in the same spot as he had yesterday. Severus tries to pay attention to Mrs. Bluefeather’s conversation, without it looking like he’s eavesdropping. 

It seems the exact copy of what happened yesterday. Severus waits for his turn, waving at the old wizard to go ahead. 

Afterwards is a test. Severus brigs back the blank-faced spy persona and goes through his words as perfectly as he can remember them. It’s the same. The sneer, the counter, the blue-dotted cloth, the hostility. Severus notices more details now, but that doesn’t mean they weren’t there the day before. How Mrs. Bluefeather pales when Severus only smiles politely at the mentions of his “blood-money.” How the old witch grabs the counter multiple times as if she’s afraid Severus is going to charge at him. 

Since he doesn’t have the papers with him this time, and therefore he’s skewing the results of the experiment, before leaving, Severus asks, “Mrs. Bluefeather, did I visit your shop yesterday?” 

The woman becomes furious. “I might be old, but I’m not senile yet, Snape! Get out!” 

Severus does. Something moves in the shadows to his left, just as the day before, but this time, Severus does not let it slide. “Lumos!”

It’s the terrified eyes he sees first. The dirty clothes he notices next, and then the small girl runs away towards the street. 

She can’t have been more than five, Severus reasons. No way she would have cursed him so severely. No, his best guesses are Potter, Granger, Bluefeather, or perhaps, but it’s more than a bit unlikely, Tina Stubbs. Or someone else entirely. Someone he hadn’t bumped into yesterday, someone who’d been nursing some ill feelings towards him and got word of his venture out into Diagon Alley. His own home, after all, was better protected than Buckingham Palace. Almost ten years had passed since the end of the Wizarding war, though. Whoever this person was, they knew how to hold a grudge. 

He has to check again. He theorizes the next: someone is either deliberately setting him up to believe he’s reliving yesterday, or he is _actually_ reliving Thursday. 

He knows how to check: yesterday after lunch, he went to the apothecary, and Potter and Granger were just coming out. 

He gets chips to go at The Drunken Duck – his waiter is the same. The ketchup is spilled at neighboring table in the same pattern. The other patrons are familiar. 

Severus has a sinking feeling in his stomach. He picks at the chips mechanically from where he lurks under cover of a strong Disillusionment Charm opposite the apothecary. 

He sees Potter and Granger go in, livelily debating something. He observes them come out just a few minutes later, faces somewhat apprehensive. They had gone through the Tina Stubbs experience, and Severus has no inclination to go and do the farce of a conversation he did with Potter yesterday. They don’t act suspiciously, and they don’t look around in search of him, so Severus halfheartedly crosses them off his suspect lists. It’s unlikely they’d be much pissed at Severus, anyhow. Both of them spoke at his trial and, although it was sickening, it was honest in that unbearably Gryffindor way. The golden trio forgave him very publicly, and there was no instance in the last eight years that Potter hadn’t corrected the newspaper when they tried to dirty Severus’s name. It would have made it easier to despise him slightly less, had he not. 

For the last trial of the day, Severus goes into the apothecary, to be greeted by Tina Stubbs, the chattiest Hufflepuff on the face of the earth. 

“Professor Snape!” she exclaims in the exact same tone, grabbing his hand with the same enthusiasm. Severus feels sick. “My word, it’s like a proper Hogwarts reunion! You wouldn’t believe who was here just a second ago, Harry Potter, _The_ Harry Potter! Who would have thought so, that scrawny little first-year, defeating You-Know-Who, but he’s proper grown-up now! A gentleman, if I say! I wouldn’t mind him knockin’ on my door, whatever the _Prophet_ says!”

Severus doesn’t bother answering. 

He needs to get a Pensieve. 

*

Severus finds a Pensieve in Borgin and Burkes. It is broken. He spends a good twenty minutes to fixing it, but it is dodgy work at best. It only plays back his memories in black and white, and the shopkeeper advises him to not put any important memories or, indeed, any of his limbs into it. They still ask fifteen Galleons for it, citing that it was a relic of the war, and Severus only has four on him, so he needs to visit Gringotts again. 

Of course, as his cursed luck would have it, he runs into Potter on the way back. Quite literally. It sets him off course, but just for a few steps. 

“Hey!” Potter shouts after him. “What’s up?” 

“The sky,” Severus spits back venomously. He doesn’t have time for him. 

Potter jogs and catches up with him easily. Damn his… everything.

“Was that a joke?” He must see the thunder gathering on his forehead, because he stops, just for a second. “Seriously, Snape, what’s going on?” 

“It’s none of your business!” Severus pants, arriving in front of Borgin and Burkes again. “Don’t follow me inside!”

Not even twenty seconds passed, and Potter is standing behind him as he pays for the Pensieve. 

“What did I just say?” Severus murmurs murderously, as the shorter man tries to peek over his shoulder. 

“Ah, come off it,” Potter mutters back, just as low. They are both acutely aware of the shopkeeper, who fails to pretend he’s not unnerved by them antagonistically whispering to each other. 

“Listen, whatever it is, I wanna help,” Potter adds as they step outside. “You sounded pretty upset earlier…” 

“I’m not upset,” Severus lies. “And I don’t need your help, Potter. Go save someone, or kiss some babies, or whatever it is you do when you’re not annoying me.” 

Potter huffs. 

“Yeah, my life is actually more complicated than that,” he says. 

“Fine. Go deal with it, then.” 

Potter finally walks away, and Severus pays his dues at The White Wyvern and moves over to the Fallen Fort. It’s a dingier place, something Severus would have frequented in wartime, but thought himself a bit too snobbish to use now, but alas, his paranoia proves stronger than his need for clean sheets.

Once locked and warded into his hole, he copies both of his memories and spends the night reviewing them, writing down similarities and differences, contemplating a number of theories. He remembers wiping his eyes, blinking, and then…

He wakes up in his room in The White Wyvern. 

The Pensieve is gone, of course, but Severus’s memories of last night (and the day before) remain. 

Severus gets dressed, goes downstairs, ignores Mrs. Fell and her wife and Greta and the fresh scones, walks quickly to the nearest Apparition point, and tries to get away. 

He dreads Splinching and expects terrible pain. 

Instead, he comes to in the same place as before: his rented bed in the small pub. It’s Thursday again. The scones are fresh. Severus can’t get out. 

*

Severus learns that he’s not able to move out of Diagon Alley, Horizont Alley, Knockturn Alley and Carkitt Market. He can’t even access The Leaky Cauldron or Muggle London. In fact, he can’t even go close to some of the walls on the ends of these streets, because if he touches them at certain points, he just gets transported back to bed, and Thursday, and the time-loop starts again. Severus always wakes in the exact same position, with the same internal balance: he’s feeling well-rested, not particularly hungry, but slightly thirsty as he usually is in the mornings. It’s always four minutes past nine. The latest he can stay awake is one hour, forty-nine minutes into the next day. He can fall asleep before that if he chooses, but it doesn’t change anything. He still wakes to the same Thursday every morning.

Meticulous could be Severus's middle name. He spends long, long days on questioning his suspects, then anyone who looks at him funny, and finally everyone else. There are no more than three hundred people coming and going about their business, Apparating in and out of Diagon and Knockturn alleys. There are only seven Apparition sites in the area he is able to explore, and he can count himself lucky they've chosen to go with keeping the wartime regulations for this, else it'd be a lost cause trying to follow who comes and goes out of the shopping centre all day. It also would be quite impossible doing it in August, when the place is swarmed with students and their families. 

As it is, out of the two hundred-eighty-odd persons who visit and leave his personal, shopping park-themed Hell, there are only twenty four he recognizes, including the wait-staff and others working on site. Those have been under his scrutiny for the past week or, shall we say, his latest six Thursdays. 

Out of the fifteen possible suspects (and that's just assuming it was done by a person, that it’s a resentful human messing with Severus and not the universe itself), eight are ex-students of his (including Potter, Granger and Stubbs), three colleagues (Bimba, Bluefeather and some guest speaker from a Potions conference whose name Severus can’t recall); four were there that Thursday, the others far away. Severus also suspects The Dark Lord, Dumbledore and the Ministry at large, but those are more out of habit and paranoia than any reason. 

Nobody else seems aware of themselves, or the loop. Most people react to him the same way every time, as if they are toys with limited speech-patterns, only changing their words or actions if _he_ changes anything while he interacts with them. There are a few differences. Potter and Granger for example. They don’t always react the same way to things, instead alternating between a few different reactions. Severus theorizes it’s because they know him somewhat, and therefore they are more sensitive to his mood than others. The annoying Tina Stubbs is a proof of this, because Severus once storms into her shop in his foulest mood, shouting at her, and the woman behaves the way Severus’s students were conditioned to, suddenly going very quiet, and muttering “Yes, sir,” “No, sir,” when spoken to. 

Severus follows most people around until he can either pronounce them entirely innocent or learns everything he can about their day. If he doesn’t interrupt, isn’t seen or heard or noticed in any other way, people do the same routines over and over and over. 

Sometime he steps in front of a person a second too late, and the subtle differences already begin. That person perhaps becomes a little grumpier because of it, affecting the next interpersonal interaction, and all of it has a ripple effect. 

This whole process gives Severus horrible headaches, but also a lot of time and possibilities on his hands. He discovers the pros of trying out different approaches against Mrs. Bluefeather. Convincing her to sell doesn’t work, however, and it makes little to no difference if he tries politeness, conniving, lying, threats, or outright physical violence (okay, he doesn’t hurt the woman, he just explodes a vase—or two—very near her limbs.). Severus is getting frustrated quicker than usual, so he’s alternating between monitoring people and trying to talk the stubborn woman into business. He also spends some time working himself through the bookshops’ offerings on the magic of time, its manipulation and management. His efforts are fruitless in all of those areas. 

He also performs every available test he can do on himself. But according to those, he wasn’t poisoned or cursed or magically manipulated in any way. His use of magic is unlimited. 

He looks the same and feels the same in his skin. He just can’t get out. And every time he wakes, it’s Thursday again. 

*

Severus wakes up and it’s Thursday again. 

There is someone under No. 32 Diagon Alley who plays the violin from three to five p.m. It’s a Bartók concerto, or something equally mad.

He has tried every flavor of cake in Florean Fortescue's Ice Cream Parlour, but even his favorites have gone bland. There is a red-haired wizard who always complains about his stolen watch in the owlery, and a couple who take their breaks from work at the same time and another who smoke self-made cigarettes hiding behind a rubbish skip. There is a small boy running around, disturbing the pigeons. The cook in White Wyvern (not Greta, there are three of them, working in varying shifts) burns the gravy at exactly 13:02 every day. No, not every day. These Thursdays. 

The Little Dirty Girl Severus discovered next to the potions shop always prefers the shadows, and steals food from a witch who passes her by on her way back from the bank. 

Almost every time, Severus stumbles on the same cobblestone. He’s meaning to mind it, but always forgets by the time he actually gets there.

Perhaps that is why he feels like he’s in a puppet show, and someone’s pulling his strings. Severus thought he was familiar with that feeling, working for two of the most powerful wizards of his time, but this is a whole new layer of helplessness. 

*

Severus wakes up and it’s Thursday again. He has breakfast. He walks on the streets of the second busiest streets of Wizarding London. He sees vaguely familiar people, he bumps into people he recognizes, others he doesn’t know anything about yet, but he surely will, sooner or later. Severus walks, and avoids Harry Potter. He stops by the bookshop and the owlery. Goes back to his hotel to dine and shower and sleep. Then Severus wakes up and it’s Thursday again. 

*

Severus wakes up and it’s Thursday again. He eats something, then walks around aimlessly until his feet bring him to the tattoo parlor. They have two artists in, and he looks through their displayed works. And since it’s not as though it matters, he chooses a picture. 

It hurts just enough to seem as if it’s real (and that grounds him a little), but not badly enough to bring back unpleasant memories. He spends a few hours in the chair, letting the artist do her work quietly.

_Have you thought this through properly?_ a voice inside his head asks, sounding a mix somewhere between Minerva McGonagall’s rigid Scottish and Bellatrix’s manic slurring. 

How lovely, I’m going crazy. Severus thinks, looking resolutely down at his work-in-progress tattoo. 

*

Severus wakes up and it’s Thursday again. The tattoo’s gone. 

_Why, what did you expect?_

The voice stays, apparently. 

*

Severus wakes up and it’s Thursday again. He misses breakfast. He gives a small, skinny girl a pastry to eat. Thinks longingly about brewing, Hogwarts, death. Argues with the voice in his head. Avoids Harry Potter. Chops vegetables in a kitchen. Has a pint. Eats. Goes to piss and shit and wanders if it’s worth it to keep going. Walks. Showers. Sleeps. Then Severus wakes up and it’s Thursday again.

*

Severus wakes up and it’s Thursday again. He draws an ancient Celtic summoning circle into the middle of his bedroom with his own blood, and summons a chicken. 

*

Severus wakes up and it’s Thursday again. He decides this is no reason not to be productive. Some potioneers would kill for this much extra time. There is a slight inconvenience about not being able take on his findings or any product of his work to the next day, but looking at this in a positive light, it’s a good exercise for his memory. 

This is fine, Severus decides, as he breaks into an abandoned shop and sets up a makeshift laboratory there out of the supplies he bought in The Cauldron Shop ten minutes prior. His hands slightly shake as he sets the cauldron over the fire, but it’s fine. It will be fine.

The voice in his head doesn’t comment. 

*

Severus wakes up and it’s Thursday again. He orders breakfast in his rooms, walks to Gringotts, obtains a cauldron and several herbs in Slug & Jiggers (because he likes working with quality, but he likes avoiding Tina Stubbs more), and goes to an unused cellar next to the parlor of Florean Fortescue's ice cream establishment. He starts brewing and pretends it’s a Friday, or a Monday, maybe, and the familiar work and smells offer an ease to his strained mind. It lasts for hours and hours, although Severus doesn’t have a recollection of time as it passes. Then, between one blink and the next, his bubbling potion, his cauldron, his temporary safe heaven disappear. 

He is back in bed, and it’s Thursday again. His body feels rested, as if he slept instead of standing ramrod straight in a smelly old cellar next to a half-made potion that now will never be finished. It never even existed, in a way. 

Severus turns to his side and stares at the wall until he falls asleep. 

Room service wakes him an hour later, and he tells the person in no uncertain terms where he’d like them to go, while in reality, wishing himself into that place. Even literal Hell should be less horrible than this. 

*

Thursdays come and go, and Severus gives up on brewing in favor of walking around on the streets and, more important, brooding. 

There is a group of twenty-somethings who come together to form a film club every evening at seven, under the teashop. Severus wanders in on them once, utterly bored, and gets completely arrested by the wonders of Muggle television. He talks (presses) Jason, the host of the evening, into giving him his keys, and he spends every night watching telly and these disks called ‘DVDs’ until he passes out. Sadly, their collection is limited, especially since Severus doesn’t care for _The Lord of The Rings_ , with its short, black-haired hero. _Sense8_ , he watches every episode of, twice. 

*

Severus wakes up and it’s Thursday again. He develops a theory: he must have died. This is Purgatory, and it makes perfect sense. It’s not suffering-inducing enough to be Hell because, honestly, he could do anything. Just nothing has any meaning, any real consequence. It’s the worst possible meaning of the word ‘free’. Severus is locked into total, utter, exhaustingly dull freedom. 

He could try anything and everything, as long as it doesn’t involve leaving these four streets. But every morning starts with a clean slate. 

Thursday comes and goes again. 

*

Severus always wanted to learn how to paint, so come Thursday, he buys some self-inking paint and brush and frames of the highest quality (gleefully ignoring the fact that the brush was made and marketed for children), and he tries to paint the half-busy street of Knockturn Alley. As he sits in a shadowy alcove, amulet merchants approach him three times, a prostitute twice. The shop-owner next to his half-hidden hideout comes around every hour for a cigarette—he comments on the progress of Severus’s art project, and Severus only allows him to do so because the man’s slightly-sordid, bit sarcastic remarks amuse the Voice. 

Severus offers his name after a particularly well-timed, “That’s a rubbish bin? I could’ve sworn on my life it looked like a dog!” and somehow, after the man’s shift, Severus is invited up to his bedroom. He hasn’t had sex in well over a decade, for various reasons. But his libido awakens as Jeremy strips his clothes, and a satisfying mutual handjob is exactly the thing to bring him back into business. 

He’s not even particularly annoyed when he bumps into Potter on his way home, forgetting the man’s schedule. He gleefully tells Potter to go and suck some cocks and enjoys the cherry-like color Potter’s face reddens into. 

*

Severus wakes up and it’s Thursday again. Feeling springy, he drinks seven coffees in quick succession, then he carefully walks into Potter and, as the young man starts saying, “So what are you doing here? I thought –”

Severus effectively silences him with mockingly finishing his sentence. 

Potter stares. 

“How--?”

“I’m psychic,” Severus drawls, grinning. “I further predict you’re going to drop your pants in ten seconds and ask for the spanking that you, you naughty little Gryffindor boy, so _absolutely_ deserve.” 

At Granger’s scandalized gasp, he only smirks. Potter gapes at him like a fish, and can’t retort anything for the next five seconds while Severus observes him victoriously.

The rest of his Thursday, he feels as though he’s walking on clouds.

*

Severus wakes up and it's Thursday again. He feels so frustrated he wants to kick something. Why is this the particular curse he's stuck with? Couldn't he have gotten Wizarding Ebola instead? He goes to breakfast and repeats the same charade of a conversation, never missing a beat. He's like a well-tuned radio. Couldn't he have been turned into an inanimate object instead? _You want to be an Ebola-ridden syringe, then?_ Severus snorts into the middle of Mrs. Fells inquiry about the consistency of his pie. He dabs his mouth with his napkin (the one with the light pink, laughing vegetables on it he's sure one day he'll light up with only his burning hate), and casually asks her, “Mrs. Fell, did you know that the last cases of Wizarding Ebola in great Britain were documented over a century ago?” 

Later, Severus walks in front of the cauldron shop; its offerings he knows by heart. Couldn't he have been a golden cauldron instead? 

_You'd never be a_ golden _cauldron. Copper at best, but still, it’s a reach._

Couldn't he have been the little insect chewing at Potter’s burgundy cardigan? A breath of air in his lungs? 

_Oh, how romantic_ , the Voice coos. 

“Not really,” Severus scowls back. “How long does a breath live?” 

_Are you suicidal again? These mood swings of yours are soooo boring._

“Fuck you,” Severus retorts, debating idly if he should take up smoking. It wouldn't damage his lungs. He'd get addicted, of course. But on the plus side, it looks cool. 

_And how old are you, twelve?_

How about parasites? He'd take some, even the very hard-to-get-rid-of ones in exchange for the time-loop to stop. Or maybe his right leg. He's really attached to the left one, but he'd give up his right. 

_What would Time do with a single leg, though?_

“I don't know, that's really not my problem anymore, is it? Eat it, give it away to charity, hang it up in the living room as decoration. I'd prefer to not know, I think.” 

_Would you bring back Voldemort?_

Severus shudders. It makes him sick, even joking about contemplating that. “No. But I'd get bitten again, maybe twice. Pixie-pox too. It's such a ridiculous disease, but I wouldn't complain a word.”

_I don't believe you. You complain near -constantly_ , the Voice laughs. Good to know that at least some part of him is entertained. 

*

Potter comes to sit next to him one Thursday, as Severus is lounging on his favorite bench (the one he hates the least so far) staring at the pigeons, contemplating suicide and murder and how it would affect his soul and time and the universe.

“Hullo, Snape.” 

Severus nods automatically, not looking at him. 

“I wanted to tell you something.”

“Okay.” Severus shrugs. He waits. He doesn’t care, not really, but it doesn’t matter either way.

Potter is quiet next to him for some time, and Severus observes that he would very much like to disappear forever. He doesn’t even long for Friday anymore, he just wants it to be over. 

“I’ve never thanked you, properly,” Harry murmurs, looking into the distance. “For saving my life.” 

Severus swallows. His emotions, which he fancied were flowing around him in the air along with all the colors, suddenly slam back into his body. He takes a deep breath.

“You’ve never cursed me, either,” he says in the same tone. “For ruining it completely.”

Green eyes flash at him. “What do you mean?”

Severus has carried this around so much, for so long. Maybe it’s time to put it down now, for better or for worse. “The prophecy. I was the one who took the news before the Dark Lord. I caused your parents’ death.” 

Harry shakes his head. “Voldemort killed them.” It’s a simple fact, and still…

“Even so—”

“No. I don’t blame you.” He meets his eyes, his expression serious. “You’ve made mistakes, you’ve paid for them, you worked hard to do good. To keep me alive. That’s what matters.”

No, he cannot be absolved that easily. It cannot just be swept away like that. He stands shakily, determinedly, and Potter follows his lead. “Such Gryffindor ethics, the black and white visions of truth!” he sneers at Potter. “I’ve killed people, Potter. It cannot be cosmically balanced out if I adopt a few orphans or pet kittens or go to church every Sunday.” 

“But how do you move forward, if you don’t forgive yourself?” Potter shoots back, anger coloring his face as well. “I could tell you I fucking hated you, but how would that help? What’s the point of carrying on, if you don’t allow yourself to change?” 

“Can’t you comprehend it with your tiny brain?” Severus explodes. He shouts, and a few pigeons fly away, scared off. “I don’t change! I’m not a good man, I never was, and I never will be!” 

Potter laughs, and it’s an ugly sound, it’s black, and it cuts into Severus’s heart. 

“Of course you won’t! You can’t even carry a conversation without insulting me. You might be brave and heroic when it comes to actions, but you’re just a child when it’s about emotional maturity or showing some of your feelings. How many times have I tried to reach out to you, just to be rebuffed?” 

Severus’s blood freezes. That sounds like a Freudian slip, a confession out of frustration. It must be Potter who placed the curse, then. Is he admitting to locking Severus into the time-loop, or is he just angry enough to not realize he’s giving his plot away? 

“How many letters have I sent? How many public events when I tried to corner you?” 

_Okay, crossing out that theory, he’s not that smart, after all._

“I’m not interested in what you wanted to say!”

“No, you are bloody afraid of what I’m trying to tell you. It must be much more comfortable, being the villain in your own mind. Or maybe the victim?”

Potter thinks he can win a verbal fight against him. How _cute_. 

“Have you decided to become a bloody shrink, Potter? Are you deriving some sort of wicked pleasure from attempting – very poorly, I might add – to psychoanalyze people? Perhaps your own shit is too much to deal with? How is Miss Weasley, or the Aurors? Do they miss you?” 

Potter takes an involuntary step back and Severus feels cool air touch his chest. Were they standing that close? 

“How do you—”

“Is there anything about the Famous Harry Potter that the whole world doesn’t know?” 

For the first time, there is a disappointed light in Potter’s eyes. His face becomes closed off and he turns away. 

“I guess you’re obtuse enough to believe that person exists.”

With that, he walks off. Severus feels sparks coming alive under his skin. He will not be insulted in this way. There are a hundred things he is, but his intelligence was never so inaccurately questioned. 

“You think I don’t know you?” he shouts after him. People stare, but Severus doesn’t give a fuck, frankly. “I knew your parents, I taught you for six years, I am one of the best Legilimens in this country!” 

Potter stands there, a few meters from him, his shoulders falling and rising with his quick breathing. His hands are in fists next to his body. 

“…And you—” Severus delivers the death-blow, in a normal volume now, since he’s sure Potter’s listening: “You are shite at shielding your mind.” 

“You don’t know me at all,” Potter spits with such a pure, dead conviction, as if he would say the sky was blue. As he starts walking again, without looking back, Severus feels the rage rising inside him. 

Pathetic little shit. He will know him better than he knows himself, given a few Thursdays, and then he will throw it all into his face, and Potter will be mortified, and Severus will be _right_. 

*

His initial plan fails. It wasn’t the world’s most creative plan, but how was he to know that Potter could withstand _Impulso_? (Especially considering he just invented the damn spell two Thursdays ago as a watered-down, definitely legal variation to _Imperio_.) Nobody else in Severus’s little universe could, but of course the freaking golden boy would be the exception here as well. 

Ambushing him in the middle of the street and demanding he’d speak to him doesn’t work, either. Potter just says, “Not with that tone, I won’t.” And he easily and elegantly steps around him. 

Severus’s inner voice is slightly impressed by the level of his sass, but his inner voice is an idiot, and Severus doesn’t listen to it on principle. 

He drives him up the wall, quite literally, because for the day to start over, Severus simply bumps into a place where the magic pushes him back to the beginning of his Thursday. Potter is so bloody frustrating that sometimes Severus complains to the pigeons for hours, but then Severus always tries again, and tries differently. Too nice doesn’t work, because Potter either becomes dead suspicious, eventually convincing himself someone is pretending to be him by magic and doing a poor job, or Severus can’t carry it out without losing his patience, his commitment to act like a dimwitted Gryffindor, or his motivation to not simply curse Potter to Monday and back… Mindless violence, it’s so much easier. When Potter is surprised, he can only counter about a third of Severus’s hexes. (Some hero of the Wizarding world.)

He’s been bitten, chewed, swallowed, cut, and set on fire by Severus, the list goes on, and his reactions are ever so entertaining. 

It gets to a point where Severus becomes half-hard just trying to think about new ways to startle him, and he touches himself in the evenings, imagining Potter’s shocked face as his new method of making him scramble to protect himself comes. 

It’s all fun and games and slightly unhealthy wanks until, one day, he summons a Dementor. 

Potter goes rigid for a second, and then he starts reaching out ahead of himself. His hands shake. He calls out names in a desperate, childlike voice. Lily, Potter, Black, Lupin. Tonks, Weasley. Diggory.

He doesn’t even pull his wand out of his robes. The hooded Black Shadow descends upon him until Severus banishes it, just at the last second before it can touch the boy.

Potter falls to his knees, sobbing. Severus can’t stand his sight for more than a blink. He Apparates away.

Severus wakes up and it’s Thursday again. Even on his closed eyelids, he can see Potter’s hunched figure and his uncontrolled grief. He hurls himself out of bed and heaves. 

He goes into the bathroom, undresses, and stares at himself in the mirror for a long time. 

His legs are hairy, his cock flaccid. His hands are potion-stained, his left arm marked forever. His chest moves slightly, in a tightly controlled manner. His face is blank, if a bit pale. While his body’s still, his eyes are alive. Black, bottomless, screaming.

This has to stop. 

*

Severus wakes up and it’s Thursday again. The Potter-project is abandoned. In fact, Severus has breakfast, he chats with the innkeeper’s wife, he goes for a quick walk, he moves into a shop while Granger and Potter pass, he goes to feed the girl, he checks on the tattoo parlor, he gets lunch, he takes himself into a cellar to listen to the violinist playing Bartók’s first concerto, he avoids the bookshop and he charms himself invisible as he hurries to the pub. 

As much as he can, he ignores even the thought of Potter.

*

It takes two and a half sweaty Thursdays’ work to figure out how to spell himself invisible. Albus used to spew all kinds of nonsensical bullshit about the wisdom and strength and emotional power a wizard needed for doing such an intense exercise; in all reality, it proves no more difficult than learning Accio.

The only downside of the spell is the dizzying unwellness that follows after he became visible again. The longer time he spends erased, the worse experience it is to materialize afterwards. 

Severus wishes he could talk to Albus about this. He wishes he could scorn and ridicule the old wizard, or perhaps just see him, once more. 

He’s been awfully lonely, these past years. 

Nobody bothered him, yes, but… nobody _bothered him_ either. 

_You’re not only losing six days of your week, you’re using your usual eloquence as well, huh?_

Well, it’s not as if there is anyone around whom he had to keep up appearances for. 

*

Seeing Potter after so long gives Severus a start. As per usual, Potter looks the same Thursday-like as always, but with Potter, it’s never so simple. Nothing is ever bloody simple or straightforward with that brat. He’s a menace, and Severus was only put on Earth, or so it seems, to suffer for his sake. 

_Yadda, yadda._

If he just knew where his place is (continues Severus, piqued at the rude interruption coming from his own head), and he wouldn’t be so damn determined to cross certain lines, if he’d just keep himself to the rules, if he would stop making an effort to speak to him every time they happened to be in the same area…

_What, you suddenly wouldn’t feel this overwhelming need to put him in his place? Where is his place, now that we get to it, Severus?_

“Out of sight, out of mind.” Severus murmurs angrily. No one pays him any mind besides the pigeons, but it’s unbecoming to shout at yourself in public. 

_On his knees before you, you mean._

Severus walks into a wall. It doesn’t help: He wakes up and it’s Thursday again. 

Potter is, and always will be, just around the corner. 

Maybe he should stop hiding. 

*

Severus doesn’t stop hiding. In fact, he does the exact opposite. He tracks Potter (sometimes in Granger’s company, occasionally separate) invisibly, then he works out a Potter-free route, on the streets and ducking into houses. He practices it, and he discovers great hiding places (as well as a few household secrets—Jemma from the Tattoo parlor cheating on her boyfriend—and some unpleasant truths about the butcher’s storage—it must be illegal to sell meat from a place clearly infested with rats). Severus also perfects his mastery of disguises, ducking into Madam Malkin’s Robes For All Occasions or The Makeover salon, and getting cosmetic surgery done or hiding in puffy skirts and colorful jackets. He imagines Albus smiling down at him while he struggles into the first corset, and he draws endless enjoyment out of Malkin’s and her co-workers’ badly concealed curiosity/disgust. The latter might be out of homophobia, or just a reaction to his black, skinny, hairy legs, but he’s not too concerned about it. What good can gender roles do when you’re stuck in the same Thursday? Why bother? 

Potter will never be perceptive enough to recognize him in a slim dress and high heels and fabulous makeup, and Severus frankly doesn’t care about his appearance or what anybody thinks of him until this Thursday ends and new Thursday starts again. 

The only problem with that image is the footwear part. Severus, not so surprisingly perhaps, cannot walk in heels. 

This is stupid, and it frustrates the hell out of him. He imagined Potter’s dumb face so many times as they chose the clothes, as he will pass him by as Miss Snape, never once to be recognized, but laughing inside at the insipid unimaginative Gryffindor. Severus’s body limitations ( _or lack of talent? missing societal pressures? natural handicap?_ ) won’t be allowed to put a stop to his entertainment, especially not when it's so rare and small compared to what he has to live with now. 

He breaks his ankle, many times. One time clumsily enough that he ends up falling head first into the asphalt. Everything's hazy afterwards. He might be bleeding because he feels hot and wet. Potter is there, and he seems upset and he cries, and maybe, if that’s even real, holds the nape of his neck, staring into his eyes, whispering desperate promises. Perhaps it’s only a memory of a long-ago moment, connected by the same green eyes and the pain. 

But eventually, Severus wakes up and it’s Thursday again. He is undeterred until his current obsession can be satisfied. Thursdays, Thursdays, streets and steps and shoes, but he learns to walk in five, six, seven inches. 

*

Potter indeed is the expected, as Severus always said, impish unobservant brat. His blank gaze, skipping over him, is less satisfactory than Severus imagined. In fact, the simple success of learning to walk easily overshadows Severus’s glee over the fact that Severus gets unnoticed by him. 

It irks him so. 

_Oh, and why is that, you Drag Queen Extraordinaire?_

Hell, Severus won’t bother to figure that out, out of spite now, if nothing else. So he just goes back, walks, to be precise, with perfect rhythm and movements light and elegant, back into the line of Potter’s vision, and he glares at him. How dare he ruin his fun? 

_Ah, so it’s his fault._

Of course, it’s his fault!

_That he reacted exactly as you wished him to?_

Severus scowls and notices, just a nanosecond too late, that Potter is staring back at him, recognition perfectly readable on his face, in the slack of his jaw. His mouth is open in shock, his eyes jumping up and down on Severus’s figure, dress, heels, face. 

It sends Severus’s heart racing in an interesting way. Unusual. A feeling somewhere between embarrassment, excitement, and empowerment. 

He smirks at Potter arrogantly. 

Potter doesn’t react much—his lips open more, his gaze frantically taking Severus in—it’s a glorious moment and Severus commits it to memory before turning on his shiny red heels and walking away victoriously. 

Potter doesn’t follow him. 

Later, in bed, cock hot and hard in hand, he calls the picture forward in his mind. The utter astonishment on him, how he froze in place. How he was helpless and lost against Severus’s scheme. His lips, falling open, his eyes, widened, pupils huge. 

The Voice murmurs to him, when he’s sated, a quietly mocking lullaby. 

_See, this, this is what you wanted._

Severus doesn’t feel pressured to disagree. He falls asleep thinking about Potter and no one bothers him about it except for his ever-active mind. 

*

Severus wakes up and it’s Thursday again. He picks up a scone on his way over to her hiding place, carefully going around the troublesome cobblestone. 

He doesn’t expect to see the burgundy cardigan. 

_Or maybe you’re getting really bad at lying to yourself._

“Hi Potter, bye Potter. Same to you, Miss Granger,” he says as he passes them. He knows they turn and stare after him, so he steps into Mrs. Bluefeather’s instead of giving her the pastry. He doesn’t want to expose her to the Gryffindors, after all. 

In the shop, he collects every other thing into his basket that he can safely move off the shelves. When it becomes full, he drags everything to the counter, waits until it’s his turn, smiles wildly at Mrs. Bluefeather’s usual belittling words, and says, “You know what? I’ve changed my mind.” 

He lazily walks out, leaving the whole thing, robe billowing behind him magisterially. 

Outside, though, he startles into a sudden stop. 

Potter is right next to the little girl’s hiding place and Severus sucks in a breath. He doesn’t know why this simple moment provokes such physical reactions out of him, but his heart beats crazily, his palms become clammy. 

Potter kneels on the ground and extends a hand towards her.

Severus knows he’s well and truly, utterly, done for when Potter, after talking quietly into the shadows for minutes, summons water and food and a blanket. 

He stares at the young man, wishing he could understand himself. Wishing Potter could explain why he is the way he is. 

He’s so busy freaking out over his crisis, he fails to move into obscurity by the time Potter stands. He’s standing next to him and says in a low voice, “There is a homeless girl over there, Snape. She can’t be much older than four. We need to help, contact the authorities or something.”

“As you say,” Severus agrees, rather gobsmacked. 

Harry glances at him. 

“Do you know anything about Wizarding childcare? If there are any services, or…”

“Even if there are, they failed to get both of us out of abusive homes, so I’d not be too hopeful they’d be of much use,” Severus snaps. He doesn’t know where it came from. 

Harry’s wand-holding hand freezes in the middle of conjuring a Patronus, or another message of sorts. 

“Are you alright?” he asks, brows furrowed. 

Severus is not, not really. Something hurts in his chest, something that makes it impossible to look at either Potter or _her_. 

He draws his wand and releases a thick smoke which completely covers him until he runs into the closest escape. 

He comes to in his bed, Thursday again, and he turns around in bed and screams into his pillow for a long time. 

*

Severus wakes up and it’s Thursday again. He does this, he does that, all in vain. And when he does this, and when he does that, things get affected for a few hours, then everything flies out of the window or flies into the window and gets killed a gruesome, but so ordinary, death. It’s heartbreaking. There must be a song about this, Severus thinks. Or maybe not. 

_Maybe time will turn you into a poet. A very shitty one._

Thursdays come and go, come and go, come and go.

Severus wakes up and it's Thursday again. He gets up, spells all the napkins in the White Wyvern pitch black, sends some dancing rubber ducks into the kitchen for Greta. He buys a newspaper and sets off a slow transformation that, over the next ten minutes, every letter will slowly morph into, “It's Thursday again! And again! And again!! Kill your darlings, nothing matters!” He spells some shops windows to reflect back light painfully and rearranges their signs to his liking. The cauldron shop becomes, “There is no dittany here, no need to come in,” the bookshop, “I have genuine fear for this generation,” the apothecary, “Tina Stubbs _will_ talk to you,” and finally, Mrs Bluefeather’s place, “Fuck this shit.”

Granger's hair turns pink, Potter's loathsome cardigan Slytherin-striped. Severus pumps so much power into the spells they can't be changed back easily and it’s rewarding if also exhausting work. But finally, his Hell looks a little different. He sits down in the middle of the street under the cover of a halfhearted Disillusionment Charm and watches the chaos break out. 

Shopkeepers and pedestrians come together into little blocks, debating the changes loudly and obnoxiously. Some are openly stressed. Severus hasn't felt this alive in a long time. He feels the constant tugging of the spells he holds as Bluefeather tries to spell her sign back to order, as Granger piles desperate charms against charms on her own head. She's clever, she'll figure it out in a few moments time, so Severus loosens his hold on her spell. 

Someone contacted a reporter and she's clicking away in a wiz-cam, her colleague interviewing passersby. Now that's a story for the tomorrow that never comes. Severus's mood sours a bit. 

But then Granger and Potter turn to Diagon Alley, the latter still covered in green and silver, and Potter starts an amusing dance, trying to keep hiding behind the know-it-all as she charges forward to meddle. The woman with the camera spots him after a few minutes, of course, and soon Potter is surrounded by an array of reporters, all shooting him questions from his sex life to what he came out to buy today. 

Potter ignores most of them, only answering a white-haired young woman's questions on his choice of garb. “I have nothing against the house of Slytherin,” Potter says loudly enough to draw Severus's attention away from Fortescue's shop. (He's trying to erase the “The mulled wine tastes like mouthwash” graffito from his window by trying to paint the whole outside green. Fairly creative approach.) 

“In fact,” Potter continues, “I was almost sorted into Slytherin. I strongly recommend that the Wizarding world change its attitudes towards Hogwarts houses. It only leads to prejudices which make it harder for us to find common ground.” 

That must be a clever lie, Severus muses. Not one ounce of Potter was crafty enough to be in the snake house. 

The wizard cops arrive while he's not paying attention. But even if Granger wrote and fed him those lines, the sentiment is admirable. Rewardable, even! Oh, Severus has the loveliest idea how he could thank Potter. Silver and Green glitter explodes over Potter's head. It's worth letting go of the ice cream shop’s vandalism for it. Severus is sure happy he has so much downtime to read about completely superficial things like how to make a birthday special. (It's glitter-bombs! Obviously.) Perhaps he'll attempt to drown Potter with these tiny sparkly nuisances. 

*

Severus wakes up and it’s Thursday again. He wonders if he’d burned down both of his eyebrows, would Potter still recognize him? 

_No, it’s **obviously** a perfect disguise. _

His face is still slightly smoking when he runs into Granger and Potter, and she runs to get someone medical help when Severus, emitting grey dust and smelling like a campfire tells her he’s not capable of getting out of Diagon Alley anymore. 

_They think you went crazy._ The Voice confines in him when Potter gently touches his shoulder and sits him down on the pavement, and draws an upsettingly powerful privacy-bubble around them. 

“So, ummm. How have you been?” Potter asks awkwardly. Severus laughs a bit, inside. Or maybe it’s outside, laughs tend to get out these days. Thursdays. Thursday’s destroyed the walls that kept the laughs in. Thursdays built bridges to the outside world, including Potter. (It’s an awful development and not something to laugh about.)

“I wish I wouldn’t have to see your stupid face every day.” 

_Oh, you wish you could simply forget about him/lose your fixation on him. This place is big enough to avoid him, after all._

Potter gets crossed-eye in his confusion. 

_It’s a cute look on him._

“Umm, where exactly do you see my face?” He asks, doubtful. 

Now it’s Severus who feels like he missed an important part of their conversation. 

“Where it should be?” He mutters back. Is Potter this dense? 

_Yes! And yet, and you still can’t leave him alone._

“In the newspapers?” 

Snape snorts. Newspapers, indeed. 

“No, on your head, you idiot!”

Severus sees him trying to figure it out, then giving up. 

“You know I’d help, right? If… you ever need it?”

Severus is pretty sure Potter can’t destroy a time-loop just ’cause he wants to, but whatever. It’s a nice gesture. 

_Who the hell are you?_ The Voice yells. _Nice?! What the fuck?!_

*

Severus wakes up and it’s Thursday again and he can’t stop thinking about what Potter said. 

Bimba listens good-naturedly, as she usually does every time Severus speaks. She doesn’t gasp at his admission of having relived the same day over a hundred times now, nor did she tut with empathy as Severus imagined she would. 

Instead, she pats his arm, and inquires conversationally, as if Severus’s words weighted nothing, when they were forcefully wretched from his heart as if it was only a minor Tuesday-night at Hogwarts problem she often encountered: 

“Can you knit?”

So Severus learns to knit. 

He figures, might as well. He has the time. 

Knitting brings an unexpected peace to his mind. It takes a few hours to learn how to mimic Bimba’s quick but precise movements, but Severus was always excellent with his hands or things that required precision. By the end of the day, he knows how to make several different patterns. Severus reluctantly confesses to the Voice that he loves it. Of course, like everything, this is also completely ruined by Thursday, which comes again, unfurling his wool to nothing. 

Stubbornly, he tries again (and again), and as it turns out, if he starts immediately in the morning, and only stops for eating and using the toilet, he is able to finish a scarf by 4pm. Slightly crossed-eye, he wears his creativity tucked around his neck on the leisurely walk over to No. 3 Knockturn Alley. He gifts it to the child without words or any ceremoniousness. He doesn’t stay to make sure she puts it on. 

*

Severus wakes up and it’s Thursday again. He gets out of bed and changes his clothes by a flick of his wand; he declines breakfast before Mrs. Fell can draw a breath for the question, is out on the well-worn streets of Diagon Alley in a matter of minutes. 

The tattooist, Miss Clarissa Carmichael, 24, former punk-band vocalist, the fiancée of a person frequently mentioned as “T,” resident of the small nearby village of Chuckmunch, which has two hundred residents and a lovely hill just good enough for a hike that doesn’t make you start sweating unattractively before your date but enough that you feel like you’d walked a sufficient length to make up for that extra slice of cake you had after lunch, at least in Clarissa’s opinion, who is the young Squib who tattooed him the previous times and is a moderately chatty person, as is illustrated by all the facts Severus’s found out about her life. It’s the fourth Thursday he’s back, but the first time he points to the picture showing a simply drawn cat’s head with pink a ribbon on it. 

Clarissa’s eyebrows go up. 

“Are you sure, sir?”

Severus gives her his best no-nonsense face. 

“It has emotional connotations for me. You wouldn’t understand,” he says dismissively. 

Clarissa is clearly flexible enough because she only mutters, “Never heard that about Hello Kitty before, but if you’re certain… I’m sure you’ve read our no-takes-back policy?”

“I’ve familiarized myself with it, yes. Please do get on with it.”

Clarissa doesn’t bat an eyelash when Severus reveals his upper thigh, just gets the whirring machine out. 

“Have you eaten and drank before coming here?”

“Of course.” Severus lies. It gives him some satisfaction, and he thinks he deserves this if nothing else. 

The steady prickling burn of the tattoo in the making relaxes his mind. It’s the exact perfect amount of pain, grounding him and keeping his mind occupied. 

Madam Malkin lets out a small scream at the sight of the cat when she takes his measurements for a skirt with a slit on the side that reveals that exact part of his thigh. 

Severus chuckles. It’s a good Thursday. 

*

It’s Thursday again, but Severus has discovered the cure! It’s alcohol. If he drinks hard enough, time will go away. 

So he gets up, forgoes breakfast and sits out at Ogden’s Garden Pub, which is just a few shops down from Malkin’s shop. There is a quiet irony in that, but maybe people who get cross with having to shop for clothes are more likely to go for a pint if it’s nearby. 

He orders a whole bottle of whiskey and a tumbler. And he drinks and drinks and drinks. Halfway through the bottle, an antsy-looking waiter gets him a plate of finger foods, says it’s on the house. 

_He’s afraid you’ll vomit untimely all over his nice shoes_ , the voice in Severus’s head comments. 

“Is there ever a proper time to vomit, though?” Severus wonders aloud, after swallowing the next mouthful. 

The world blurs at the edges and everything becomes lighter and funnier for a while, even his current predicament. 

_You should just go and murder her in the mornings, then you’d have a shop for a whole day_ , the voice suggests. 

“I’m avoiding invast--invasive changes,” Severus argues. A killing curse might tear his soul apart. 

_I kinda recall you getting tattoos on several occasions_ , the bastard counters cheekily. 

“Fuck off,” Severus tells it, and realizing he feels too insulted to pour himself another glass from the rapidly disappearing brown fluid, rests his head on his hands on the wooden table. “That’s different. I like the feeling.” 

_You were always kind of a masochist._

“Fuck o-oh-off,” Severus intones. 

Sometime later (he might have dozed off a little), an awfully familiar voice calls out his name. 

_No._ Severus thinks. _Potter never comes this way before noon. Even then, the probability of him actually noticing me is pretty low._

“Hi!” The younger wizard comes up and stands before him, in all his short but sparkling glory. Severus sulkily grabs the whiskey off his table and drains its remaining contents straight from the bottle. He’s not sharing any of his alcohol, not even with formerly despised, uncomfortably attractive men. 

Potter waves a hand over at the waiter and asks if he may sit. 

Severus is lost in an argument in his own head determining if he wants to talk to him or not. 

Somehow, the idiotic part of him wins, because just the next minute, Potter is sitting opposite him. Severus is in the middle of wording a fantastically good-sounding dismissal when the waiter arrives with a second bottle of whiskey, which Potter pays for.

“Fine,” Severus agrees with some resentment. “You may stay until that runs out, provided you stay quiet.”

Potter does a motion with his hand which must be a way to imitate zipping his mouth shut and then throwing it away, which not only doesn’t make any sense but also reminds Severus painfully of Albus. 

With that, his mood takes a plunge for the worse. He reaches for the amber liquid and pours himself some, but he nurses it in his hand for a while before swallowing it. Under the watchful gaze of Potter, he can’t let go, not completely. Even if it doesn’t matter. 

Potter keeps his mimed promise for three and a half glasses. That time passes with them staring at each other in a stupidly intense way. After Severus surely told him how annoying, infuriating, bothersome and, most of all, nuisance-y he finds him with his eyes only, there is a moment of weakness on his part, when something else must shine through. 

“Are you all right?” Harry whispers. Severus knows he hopes he’s forgotten his vow to keep silent, but even as Potter slowly morphs into two, he struggles to remember. Ah, yes. This means he has to go. 

“I’m… yes.” Severus murmurs, contemplating. “Now get out.” 

The lines around Potter’s mouth, which looked so concerned before, harden. 

“I’m not going anywhere. It’s obvious something is wrong, or you wouldn’t be sitting here getting roaring drunk in the middle of the day. That’s not the Severus Snape I know.”

_Hah! LIES! He doesn’t know any Severus Snapes._

“Fine, I’ll go then.” Severus stands with quiet dignity. Potter catches him by the arm so he doesn’t fall. 

“Can’t I help?” Harry offers, stuck somewhere between kindness and stubbornness. 

“I don’t know, can you actually manipulate time, Oh Great and Undying Blindface?” Severus spits in his face with sudden vehemence, and Potter startles back, releasing him. 

“Yeah, I didn’t think so!” Severus snarks at his questioning face. Fuck his stupid eyelashes. 

He finds his way back to the inn by muscle memory and he falls into bed without closing his door or taking his shoes off.

*

Thursday morning arrives with no hangover whatsoever, and a completely morbid thought: _let’s get so drunk that I puke on Potter as soon as he dares to sit at my table._

The plan goes splendidly up to the point where Potter doesn’t turn up at approximately the same time as Severus remembers him coming. 

He looks around every few minutes, the movements making him slightly queasy, but there is no sign of the familiar black hair. 

_Fuck Potter_ , suggests the voice in his head. 

“I would like to,” Severus answers and they snigger for a few minutes until Severus realizes that it’s not a good joke; in fact, it’s the tragic truth. That warrants a bit more whiskey, which comes with an over-worried waiter trying to feed him again (this time he even brought some water too, the sweetheart), and Severus frowning at his inner voice multiple times. 

Severus staggers to the toilet a few times. He has half a mind to just relieve himself under the table, but his waiter would make a fuss, surely. And he really seems like a nice person, so Severus tries to make it to the lavatory before he ruins the carpet. 

He comes back after, and continues on the whiskey. He’s lost count on how much he’s had. Sixteen glasses, maybe? Two hundred and thirty days, perhaps? It doesn’t matter. 

There will always be one more. The same one, over and over again.

He is crying over that fact when Potter finds him. It’s gone dark, and it’s not just inside of Severus’s head, but also out in the October air. 

“Jesus, Snape, what’s going on?” he demands fearfully, taking Severus’s face into his hands, staring into his eyes. 

“You’re pretty.” Severus shares this tragic news with him. He makes sure to sigh at the end of the sentence to show him how inconvenient he is. 

Potter blinks. His dumb eyelashes flutter. 

“Well, you are very drunk.” He returns the compliment, and mutters something about taking him home. 

“I can never go home,” Severus tells him gravely as they stumble down the streets towards the inn. “I’m stuck here forever.” 

Potter only pants in response, supporting his weight from the side. 

The stairs are a terrible business. They jostle Severus’s whiskey-filled stomach terribly. Terrible, terrible, terrible. The ribble. The Riddle?

The next thing he is aware of is throwing up into his toilet, with Potter holding his hair back. 

It’s vile, but he feels better when it’s over. 

“Should I get you some potion?” Potter asks after he’s settled his forehead against the cool sink. “I assume you have something with you.”

“No need,” Severus mutters, closing his eyes. “It will go away by the morning.” 

“If you’re certain…” Potter says, doubt clear in his voice. 

Severus looks at him. He follows him with his eyes as he gets a flannel out of a cupboard, wets it with warm water and offers it to him. Severus’s hands are shaking, but he runs it over his face nonetheless. After rubbing his mouth from the outside, he gives it back to him. They repeat the same with a glass of water, then with a toothbrush. 

Putting everything away, Harry settles next to him on the floor. He stares at him skeptically. 

“Will you tell me what’s going on?” he asks as if anticipating the answer. 

Severus stares at him, wondering about it. Should he tell him? What good would it do? He can’t help, that’s for sure. 

It’s a gamble, but in the end, it doesn’t matter. Still, he has to think about it, and with a clear head, and not in Potter’s presence.

So, changing tactics, Severus simply repeats, “You’re pretty.” 

Curious, how Potter blushes, after the surprised blink. 

“You said that already,” Harry mumbles. “I just don’t understand why.”

“Because it’s true,” Severus allows, feeling nauseated, in a completely different way than how the alcohol affects him. “And because you won’t remember it in the morning.”

Harry chuckles. 

“I’m pretty sure that’s not how it works, Snape.” 

He knows nothing. 

There is one thing certain, though, Severus finds, after he is sick two more times: Potter is a surprisingly good toilet buddy. 

*

Severus wakes on Thursday with a clean head, with no visitors or obtruding smells in his bathroom. 

He spends the morning in his favorite coffee place, just to the right side of Borgin and Burkes, thinking of what Potter said yesterday. 

Should he just tell people? Would it change anything?

_Of course it wouldn’t._

“I’ll rephrase,” Severus tells himself aloud. “ _Would it make me feel any better?_ ”

For once, the Voice is just as clueless as he. 

*

Severus stares at Ron Weasley’s matured face, his eyes constantly wandering back to the freckles that must be a leftover of holidaying abroad. His shoulders have broadened over the course of Severus’s absence from the Wizarding world and, although he resembles his father slightly more these days, his eyes still squint at him with the same mistrust and unveiled hatred they always have. 

But as his two friends explain the situation, once or twice interrupted by Severus’s clarifications, Ron Weasley slowly transforms into the exceptional strategic-minded man Albus envisioned once over twenty years ago, when a red-haired eleven-year-old had easily beaten Minerva at chess. 

The youngest Weasley boy looks at him, his friends, and finally at the table, considering. Watching him think is as painful an experience as it always was, but then again, Severus is pretty desperate. 

_Can you hear the cogs turn too, or is that just me?_ the Voice muses maliciously. _They haven’t been oiled in a long time._

Ronald isn’t usually around in his Hell-Theme-Park, with him working in Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes all day, and not joining his friends during their stay at The Shopping place. 

(Severus has gone into the store once, over a hundred Thursdays ago. It was a mistake, never repeated.) But his career as a professional prankster (Severus throws up a little in his mind, for once in total agreement with his Inside Voice) has clearly rid Wesley of all the redeeming qualities he once might have possessed, because after a tense few minutes of him very visibly and noisily contemplating Severus’s little dilemma, he looks up at him, grinning. 

“Have you tried blowing it up yet?” 

*

After Severus has finished shouting at them, and the young ‘adults’ cleared off angrily, their egos stomped into the ground (not nearly as much as they deserve), Severus goes to his favorite coffeehouse to meditate on Weasley’s words. 

_It’s little different than suicide_ , the Voice cautions although that might just be Severus’s remaining shreds of common sense.

But so many Thursdays have passed. With Severus waking up, doing things, and waking up to the same thing again. It will go on like that, perhaps forever, if he doesn’t do anything. It will, by some chance, go on all the same, even if he tries. It’s too early to give up and late enough to truly worry about the consequences. Everything is greying in Severus’s world. Every Thursday a little weaker in color, himself with a little less care. He might disappear completely if nothing changes. 

So Severus tries blowing it up. 

First, it’s the edges of the invisible wall that keep him locked into place. Second, it’s the place where he wakes and goes to sleep, where the circle begins: his bed. Third, the whole room, four, the inn. Then it’s Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes (five) because Severus is getting frustrated. Six is the Apparition points, when Potter and Granger safely passed, and no other person is around, seven’s Gringotts, eight, nine and ten is the Fucking Shop of Misery HE DOESN’T EVEN WANT ANYMORE, and he’s pretty sure he “dies” at those times, because Thursday comes and he wakes in his bed immediately after he threw the potion at Mrs. Bluefeather’s feet, her cauldron, her stupid little bell on the counter, and his vision turned green. 

So the next few times he doesn’t bother going out of the only semi-comfortable bubble he created in the moldy-walled room with his array of cauldrons, unsanitarily kept potion ingredients and cutlery sets not all designed for brewing.

He starts out scientifically enough, but it turns into more and more of a hassle each time he has to get up, leave the inn, collect his things in the store, step into the queue and wait until it’s his turn to pay. He attempts stealing what he needs once, but it’s such an uncomfortable string of hexes and social interactions and threats of Auror-involvement that it makes the conventional route easier to suffer through. A few well-placed Confundo’s and Impulso’s help, but still a half-hour process, incredibly tiring. It drains Severus enough that on Explosion Day Four he simply forgoes all logic, and he stabs a mandrake in the chest-cavity, adds an insane amount of coconut-oil, stirs common onions into the concoction, and most of the times it blows up, of course, as expected, but…

There are interesting discoveries made, too. 

Severus’s inner potioneer, who was eager to earn his Mastery, the one he forgot about in the first true Reign of Voldemort, and the poor thing never recovered from Snape The Spy’s experiences, suddenly and unexpectedly flares up. 

Days spent with experimenting (and occasionally blowing up or getting paralyzed or losing his fingers and bleeding out from his eyes and the one spectacular time of growing two more sets of legs) distract him for… he has no idea how long. 

He dreams again, too, finally. Standing in the line waiting for his shopping, he imagines his discoveries, and the ways they’ll make him famous or improve life in the Wizarding world. He’s pretty sure he’s only a sword-distance from the solution to how children’s pixie-pox can be cured. He’s halfway through developing a solution for permanent blindness, and it might be a reach just yet, but he has observed a curious set of ingredients-interactions that has the possibility of someday becoming an All-Too-Powerful Potency restoring salve. Powerful enough to create life, someday. 

If a day, a day other than Thursday, ever comes. 

*

Severus wakes up and it’s Thursday again. He lies in bed for a long time, contemplating his life. However horrifying the thought may be, it is entirely possible that _this_ is how it will stay. Thursday forever. 

_Look, how terrified you are_ , the Voice mocks him. Severus wants to sneer back, but then… at one point, he really needs to start being honest with himself. 

_Yes, I’m terrified._ He tries it out cautiously, then all the hot passion of the situation runs over him as if rivulets of hot lava. 

_Of course, I am! How could I not be?! I have no future, nothing I do or say have any weight, there is nothing to be gained, and no change, no change. Thursday, Thursday, Thursday._

With a sudden forcefulness, he aches for Albus. He would know what to do with a situation like this. If not, he could provide emotional support. 

It’s been years since he allowed himself to love someone. Albus died more than… God, so long ago. And this thing with Potter now… It would be hard without the loop but stuck here, it’s worse. There is no progress because whatever he does, Potter forgets about everything that might have happened between them by the time morning comes.

*

Severus wakes up, jots down the ever-longer list from memory, and sets out to have a light breakfast (with extra strong coffee, for dealing with Gryffindors) and is just in time to catch Granger (and Potter) Apparating into the corner of Knockturn Alley. 

“Ah, good morning, Miss Granger. May I talk to you?” 

Granger always rocks back on her heels involuntary when she sees him: it’s usually followed by either a suspicious glance, a hesitant greeting, or a correction of her title. Sometimes, a combination of those things. 

“Actually, it’s Granger-Weasley now,” she says, exchanging a glance with Potter. “What is the matter, Master Snape?”

“Privately, if you please.” Severus motions to the side, not wanting to make a spectacle of himself in front of the blue-haired witch, who will follow their Apparation by two minutes. There is also a chance Potter will hear this as the dismissal it is for him, although that rarely happens. 

But today is one of those days. _Oh, blessed Merlin_. 

“Um, guess we’ll catch up in the bookshop?” Potter directs his question towards Granger, but his curious gaze never leaves Severus’s face. Not as though Severus is looking back. At her nod, Potter murmurs, “Good to see you, Professor.” 

You see me every day. 

“Right. My conundrum is this, Miss Granger,” Severus starts rattling off as soon as they’re alone. “I am stuck in a time-loop. I’m reliving the same day, this day, over and over again. I have no idea why. You’ve agreed to postpone your shopping to Apparate to the Ministry’s library and research this matter for me, as I cannot leave these streets, since if I try the day starts again. These are the volumes you’ve already read through for me.” He presents her with the paper. “Our tried and working method is that you owl me in the evening or come back personally to share what the day’s books contain. I can give you an abbreviated version of all of them now, if you wish.” 

Granger scans through the list, several times. She’s strangely quiet: by this time, usually, she’s firing off questions left and right. Finally, she lifts her head up slowly. 

“Professor…” _Oh-oh, I don’t like that pitiful tone_. “If what you say is true… Look, there are thirty-four items on this list. That means I’ve spent more than… at least more than two weeks looking for an answer for you. Have I found out anything that took you closer to solving the problem?”

There is a pregnant pause. Severus thinks back to the last weeks’ circle of hope and desperation cycles. He grits out through thinly pressed together lips:

“…No.”

Granger nods sadly, as if she expected this answer, in spite of learning of his condition barely ten minutes ago. 

“Then I think you have to start looking at this from another angle. Truth be told, if I read all the classics—” she consults the list again, “—and almost two dozen works I’ve never heard of on the topic, there is almost no chance I’ll find an answer. Try to solve the situation from another vantage point.”

“Do you mean, instead of research I should just try and _pray away_ the time-loop? Scare it into stopping, perhaps? Sell my soul to the literal Devil?!” Severus wants to curse her. _Bloody fool!_

Granger shakes her head exasperatedly. She holds up a hand as if that will help placate Severus. He’s seeing stars. 

“Well… obviously, there must be a logical… set of criteria that needs to be… fulfilled or set right, I’m not sure. I’m just suggesting that it’s probably not going to go away by having me read books.”

“So you refuse to help,” Severus snaps at her, having had enough of her goody-two-shoes intellect and unimaginative ideas. _Ungrateful little child._

“I didn’t say that. I meant there is no use of me reading any more of…”

“Lovely. Thanks for nothing, Miss Granger. Have a nice day. Make sure you don’t trip on your great altruism and break your neck,” Severus snarls at her, snatching the list back from her hand. 

He ignores the witch’s protest and walks seething all the way over to the shop he wanted to buy once upon a time, on an uncomplicated Thursday. He rips the paper into tiny, tiny pieces, and he blows them into Potter’s face the next time he sees him. 

*

“So Hermione told me about the whole thing,” Potter says to him that night, knocking on his bedroom door (shocking Severus out of his boots; no one ever bothers him after nine on Thursdays). “It sounds like some pretty wretched business. May I come in?”

“Why are you here?” Severus asks with moderate hospitality. Potter chuckles at his tone and steps around him and settles on his floor. 

“Do you have something against chairs?” Severus asks mockingly. 

“Do you have something against manners?” Potter imitates him, grinning. _The brat isn’t even afraid of me anymore, damn it._

“I can’t stand uninvited visitors, Gryffindors and unintelligent prats. Someone here fits all of those categories.” Severus throws an unimpressed gaze on him. 

“I thought you might appreciate a friend in this desperate time.”

“Oh, how touching. You are right, I would.” He makes a show of looking around in his cheap hotel room. “So where is he?”

Potter lets out a disbelieving snort, which somehow turns into a thinly veiled laugh, which turns into a glare. 

“Bastard.” 

“Prat.”

Potter concentrates so hard on not snapping back at him, he gets cross-eyed behind his glasses. 

“Okay, whatever,” he says after a minute. “Do you want me to stay and debate what options you have, or would you rather argue with me all night? Because if that would help you, at the minute, to… I don’t know, let out some frustration, I’d totally understand. I can’t imagine what it must… Or... we can just talk if you want. The point is, I’m here. Or I could go. What you decide.” 

Severus stares at him for a long time. Potter’s cheeks get more flushed with every passing minute, but he holds his gaze. 

“Go,” he says challengingly.

Potter sighs, his shoulders sagging. He stands, however, moving towards the door, only glancing back as he opens the door. 

“You don’t have to do this alone,” he mutters before leaving.

Severus regrets his words as soon as he’s out of the door. 

*

He tries again with Granger the next day and, although the witch refuses his plea again (which is equally infuriating, but stings slightly less the second time), she also tells Potter about him, who in turn chooses to turn up on his doorstep again. It would be facetious to say Severus spends the whole day planning and arguing with the voice in his head, but sadly, it’s true. 

But slowly, painfully, nine p.m. and the accompanying knocking does come, so when Potter repeats, “I’m here. Or I could go. You decide.” 

Severus stares at him and counts to five in his head. 

He then makes an irritated gasp (he practiced this afternoon, to not be either too eager nor too dismissive), and answers, “Stay.” 

Harry smiles at him and Severus has to bite on his own tongue to remind himself that it’s just relief he feels in his chest, not something more damning. 

_Keep lying to yourself, Severus. Sure there are no problems with that._

“So, how does it work exactly?”

“Every day is Thursday. The same over and over again. Nothing changes unless I act differently.”

Potter winces in sympathy. “That must be maddening. What do you know about it?”

Severus purses his lips.

“There is no one in town who’s causing this by any spell or potion or amulet, as far as I know, and I fancy myself and your Miss Granger well-read enough to be sure we would have encountered some information about it were it possible to do by any means, either with malicious or benevolent intent. Nevertheless, I have searched every bit of these streets from dusk till dawn, from rooftops to cellars, and there is nothing.”

“Huh,” Potter says, pushing his glasses up his nose. “What have you tried?”

“Do you wish to hear the whole list or the abbreviated version?”

“Um, short is fine, but I might ask further into it.”

“Everything.”

“I’m sorry?”

“That’s it in a nutshell. I’ve tried everything, or certainly, multiple times more than your tiny Gryffindor brain can find in itself to come up with.”

That familiar flame of anger lights up in Potter’s eyes. 

“I’d doubt you tried anything _decent_ since it seems like you’re incapable of doing that.”

“And what's your suggestion, oh Wise Potter, should I ask Thursday to go away _nicely_?”

The disdain almost drips from the world as he says it, like some heavily flowing substance. Like black honey. His head supplies the useless image. 

Potter rocks forward in his sitting position to stare at him with annoyance-filled eyes. 

“It’s sodding _magic_ , it never _was_ logical!”

“I will not _beg_ to an unpredictable, perhaps sentient entity!”

“Maybe you deserve to be in such a situation, then. Would it truly kill you to put away your pride for…”

“For something almost as foolish as dancing naked in the moonlight for raising magic? Yes, it might.”

Potter huffs and sits back. He drums on his right arm with his fingers irritatedly, but suddenly stops, and a small smirk takes residence on his face.

“You don’t believe in that practice, Professor? I believe I saw Professor Flitwick once.”

“You and me both,” Severus mutters, remembering the ominous evenings when he’d run into the naked wizard. It happened two very awkward times before he became more cautious what route he took back to the castle from his ingredients-collecting in the Forest. 

A sound of mirth leaves Potter’s throat. They sit in comfortable silence for a while and Severus wonders how long that will last. (The best-case scenario is Thursday morning.)

“Listen… I know we’re not friends, but we are… something, right?”

Severus snorts.

“Eloquent as always, Potter. We are acquaintances, yes. We are also quite resentful of each other. We are… we were important participants in the same war, we lived in the same castle for six years… The list goes on.”

Potter glares. 

“But you don’t hate me anymore, do you?” he asks finally. 

Severus sighs. Dare he admit just how much he doesn’t hate him anymore? Is there any point, besides getting irrevocably solid evidence that Potter finds the whole idea of them being any way closer to each other disgusting? 

“No, I don’t hate you anymore,” he allows, swallowing back the rest. His old, foolish heart still wants to escape his chest, even at that. 

Potter smiles and it warms Severus’s insides rather obscenely. 

“Good.”

*

Severus learns to float in the air, without any cares or fears immobilizing him. It’s a lot like flying without a broom, but there isn’t any destination: he just exists and, as long as he floats, there is nothing else he needs to bother himself about. Except perhaps floating into houses, but he takes care of that with a thorough cushioning charm. 

Thursdays come and come again. 

*

Severus wakes up on Thursday, all ready for time to repeat again, filled with purpose and determination. He picks a scone off a person's plate who always looks away at that exact same second. He waits for Potter (and Granger, whom be still hasn't forgiven) by their Apparition points, gazing into Potter's shocked eyes and commanding, “Walk with me.” 

He imagines more than he hears Potter hurriedly talk things over with Granger. He is already several steps ahead when Potter catches up to him panting, and Severus can't pass up a smirk. 

There are a few advantages of being a feared teacher, and he's sure eighty-five percent of his ex-students would have done the same as Potter, out of the sheer routine of complying with him. 

_I always knew it was worth acting like an arsehole for several years_ , the Voice agrees merrily. 

“Sir? Sir? Do you need my help with something?”

“Nope,” Severus replies, popping the ‘p’ with pleasure. He's delusional, this pretty boy. Severus will never need his help with anything. Funny that he thinks himself capable. 

“I only require your company,” he goes on after a few minutes of single-minded stroll. It might be petty of him, but he definitely enjoys Potter's unease. His plan for this Thursday is excellent. He'll take Potter down to the catacombs under Gringotts and demand another breakout. Severus imagined this, and it's a win-win in every instant, what and however it happens. For one, it ought to be entertaining, Potter slowly understanding what he wants, and that he really means it. Him, trying to talk, bargain, then force himself out of the whole thing. Will be fall back into wartime strategies? Would he be brave enough, reckless enough, stupid enough to agree without question? Would he provide ideas how to do it? 

_Aren't you a tad bit obsessed?_ the Voice asks, and he impatiently answers, “It's a character study. Besides, I spent the better half of a decade keeping him alive, so the LEAST I get to be is a little obsessive.” 

Unpredictably, the first surprise comes before they've even set foot in the bank. Potter stops tentatively a few meters from the big and disgustingly familiar ornate doors and crooked pillars and... suddenly starts pretending he's searching for something in his pockets. It's a frightfully transparent action and Severus is sure no one would be fooled by it, but certainly not the Man Who Lied Straight Into Voldemort's Noseless Face. 

He lifts an eyebrow inquiringly. Potter mutters something. 

“Speak up.”

“I can't go in.”

“What?”

“I'm banned.”

Severus puts up an inquisitive eyebrow. 

Potter shuffles his weight from one foot to the other, seemingly unwilling to move or speak. 

“Care to explain?” Severus asks, even if it’s fairly certain Potter is reluctant to do so. 

“Not here.” 

_But what about our romantic burglary plans?_

Potter leads Severus to the Drunken Duck. Their waiter is Milan again, and Severus wonders how he copes with the inevitable repetitiveness of his day this Thursday. Severus is doing well, thanks for asking. He’s even withdrawn from alcohol for some time now. 

“Speak,” Severus prompts Potter when he has downed half of his ale. 

“Umm, I don't know if you recall, but Ron and Hermione and I broke into Gringotts, and out of Gringotts, in the war?”

_Oh, yes, the heroic exit on a dragon._

“Doesn't ring a bell.”

Harry shakes his head at the blatant lie, or maybe it’s a tic that helps him remember. 

“That's essentially what happened. We went for Gryffindor’s sword, we needed it to destroy the Horcruxes. Of course it later turned out it was a fake, but… the point is, after the war the Head Goblin started cornering me and demanded to be compensated for the damage that the restorations cost.”

Severus would never have thought. 

“And I had a lot of money back then, and also, more important things were going on, so I paid a large sum. But even after that, the goblins demanded more. So Hermione sued them, for misconduct and blackmail and whatnot.”

Severus was surprised this story never made the papers. 

“But the goblins sued back, it got really ridiculous at one point… and we've been in legal battles ever since. One of the rules I have to adhere is that I can't go into any of their buildings. So. That.”

_Well,_ now _you definitely need to take him._

“Where do you keep your money, then?”

_C’mon Severus, think of the chaos. Think of the shrieking. It would be so much fun._

But Potter answers before Severus can persuade himself and counters with a few questions of his own. Severus only notices that they’d been talking animatedly for hours when the waiter offers them their lunch-menu. 

“Would you mind eating with me?” Severus asks, trying out honesty instead of Impulso, just this once. “I find myself… somewhat lonely nowadays.” 

Potter stays. 

*

So it starts. Severus wakes up and he goes to see Potter. 

Time repeats, but it matters less when Harry is there. 

*

Severus wakes up and it's Thursday again. 

He waits by the Apparition point, hair combed, robes new and shoulders consciously relaxed by the time Harry and Granger arrive. 

“Hello, Miss Granger, Mr. Potter,” he greets them, stepping closer. Their eyes widen but Severus never bothered to find out if it’s because of the unexpectedness of his presence, or the almost pleasant tone he speaks in. 

“Professor?” Granger questions, but Severus has already focused his attention on her companion. 

“Mr. Potter, would you mind spending the day at my side? I can accompany you through all the necessary shopping you came here to do.”

It takes a bit convincing to lose Granger, as it always does, but not over half an hour later, they are walking side by side towards the end of Knockturn Alley. 

Severus explains the curse and Harry believes him eventually. He always does. From then on, he feels free to let the young man control how their day will progress. He works on getting past the man’s defenses, the understandable struggle of getting used to Severus’s changed attitude towards him. He walks with Harry, dines with him, shops with him, and all the while there is only one objective in his mind: trying to make him laugh. 

It doesn’t usually happen until early afternoon; still, it’s a gift all on its own. He looks beautiful when he laughs, so Severus doesn’t mind telling the same jokes over and over again, as long as his reaction is the same. 

It’s late evening, hours after they’ve finished supper, when something new happens. He’s in the middle of telling Harry an amusing story about babysitting the five-year-old Draco when Harry interrupts him. 

“Wait, hold on.” Severus stops obligingly. “You said you’re reliving the same day, but it just occurred to me… Have we done this before? In… in your point of view?”

Severus purses his mouth. 

_Shit, it’s going to sound creepy either way._

“Yes.” 

“How many times?”

“Seven or eight, so far.”

Harry looks away as he digests this. When he returns Severus’s gaze again, he looks colder, less open. Severus’s stomach drops. 

“So how will the night commence? Do I kiss you goodnight? Do we have sex? Are you… dating me, without my knowledge?” 

Severus feels attacked. Maybe it’s the tone that hurts him, maybe it’s the knowledge that none of that ever happened. 

“Are you that cheap, Potter?” he asks with murder-sweet voice. “Are you saying I shouldn’t bother gaining your trust, I could just offer a blowjob against a wall in Knockturn Alley and you’d jump to take me up on it?”

Potter’s head becomes red with humiliating shame. 

“Why the hell were you pretending to be a decent man all day, then? Because from what I can see, Snape, you’re still the same freaking bastard, who can act very well when it suits him to!”

“And you are an ungrateful, spoiled child, just like your disgusting father,” Severus hurls back, patting his robes for his wand. He notices it lies next to his plate on the table, but he gets distracted by Harry’s dark laugh. 

“Now that’s something _I’ve_ heard seven or eight times before!” 

Severus curses him bloody and gets wounded in return. It doesn’t matter. Thursday starts again. 

*

“Why have you been following me all day?” Potter asks angrily, when he steps out after him into the shadowy crossway of Diagon Alley. 

_Well, here comes nothing._

_Humor me_ , Severus thinks. Aloud, he says, “I wanted to offer you a blowjob.”

Potter is shocked for a minute only. The next instant, he’s got his wand pressed into Severus’s neck, his hand shoving his shoulder into the wall behind them. 

“Who are you, and why are you wearing Severus Snape’s face?” he demands, pushing his growling face into Severus’s vision. 

Severus laughs menacingly. 

“I thought not.” 

*

It hits Severus one and a half Thursdays later when he can think back on the whole incident without wanting to strangle Potter. That's an interesting conclusion to draw. Severus being... _Yes, say it, “Nice.”_ … pleasant to him for a few hours, and instead of blaming guilt or… or Merlin help him, fatherly feelings, Potter's mind goes to the nasty. Is that the usual Death Eater equals rapist equals pedophile rhetoric, or is it… wishful thinking? 

*

“Potter, could you… Help me, please?” Severus says exactly two Thursdays later. He finds he’s not even sarcastic anymore. Everything is much direr than that. He _likes_ this young man, and his days become immensely better when he can spend some quality time with him. Potter helps with his mere presence. 

Usually, it develops into a conversation, or a shared meal, or, at one memorable time, into Potter ranting to him about his abysmal love and work life, which takes both of them by surprise. So much so that, when Potter scratches the back of his neck embarrassedly, muttering, “I don’t know why I told you this.”

Severus immediately reacts with, “Because you love me.” He even uses his bedroom voice, in case it’s not ridiculous enough. 

Harry stares at him, gobsmacked. His jaw might have dropped a bit. 

''Not yet?'' Severus shrugs nonchalantly, trying to play it cool. ''That’s fine. I’ll come back tomorrow.''

*

Severus wakes up and it’s Thursday again. Harry, funnily enough, is having one of his ’reluctant’ days. That’s what Severus calls them, anyhow. There is something, he discovered just a few Thursdays ago, that Harry is on the verge of saying sometimes, in those moments when he looks at him surprised, searching for something. Severus has no idea what it could be, but it gives him something to look forward to. 

When it happens, it goes something like this: 

Severus makes a slightly passive-aggressive quip about the pigeons, and Potter smiles at him cautiously. 

“You’re different.” 

“How so?”

“I’m trying to work that out.” Potter swallows, looking away. “You are looking at me like I’m something… talking to me like I’m interesting. Like you consider me to be a proper person now, not just the shadow of someone from your past.” 

It’s been a lot of Thursdays since Severus last thought of his parents, it’s true. 

“I’m just wondering, were you always like this, or have I changed so much in these last years that I can now recognize you for what you are?” 

It’s probably not as easy as that. It’d probably take four hundred Thursdays to come up with an answer for that, so Severus swallows his shaky emotions, and says instead, “I have never played Exploding Snap before if you can believe that.” 

Harry laughs, letting go the non-too-subtle change of topic, and they spend a good chunk of the evening sitting on Severus’s bed, trying to avoid the exploding cards. By the warm light of the fire, Harry is even more beautiful than usual. 

“The thing is, whoever changed, it’s good. I think I really needed this.” 

Severus smiles back at him, silently praying for a change, too. He needs to carry this day over to the next one, he needs Friday, he needs change. 

Harry falls asleep on his bed, glasses askew, half the deck under his body. Severus stares at him as long as he is able, pleading for time to stop. 

*

Severus wakes up and it’s Thursday again. 

He goes over to her usual place, offering food and a warming charm for her clothes. He sits down on the dirty pavement and tries to make conversation with a little girl hidden in the shadows. 

He’s lucky if he gets a mumbled answer, but as Thursdays come and go, he collects the information steadily. 

The most important: her name is Maddie. 

With no family, no house, no place to stay.

Severus wishes he could change that. He wishes he could change a lot of things. 

*

Severus wakes up and it’s Thursday again.

He spends the day visiting his favorite places. He provides food and shelter to Maddie, he joins Pomona for half an hour knitting. He takes Harry and shows him the underground movie group, and everyone is so delighted by the presence of Potter that they forget to ask how the hell Severus found out about their secret.

He dines with Granger and Potter, and tips every worker of the Drunken Duck well. 

The day ends with Potter and him playing Exploding Snap in his rooms until the younger man falls asleep. It’s a normal enough occurrence by this point, so Severus doesn’t feel the need to do anything else than lie down next to him on the bed, and close his eyes until Thursday comes and goes.

*

Severus wakes up and there is a weight of an arm over his chest. 

That’s not how it’s supposed to happen. 

Heart racing, barely daring to breathe, Severus turns his head. 

Potter is drooling on his pillow, one arm casually thrown across Severus’s ribcage. His clothes are rumpled, his hair is a mess, but he’s the most joy-producing thing Severus has ever seen in his whole life. Because it means one thing. 

Thursday is over. 

He lets out a choked whimper, soon followed by the overwhelming need to let out more, to be louder and celebrate his relief and let go of his worries. 

He locks himself into the bathroom and soundproofs it: for a good reason too, because the whimpering is followed by such aggressive, overwhelming sobbing, that he can’t even begin to imagine letting other people witness it. He knows he’ll feel slightly foolish after it’s over, but now, for the life of him, he can’t stop. Tears and snot are running down his face, and he uses his robes to wipe them away, and soon he’s a disgusting, but god, so relieved, so relieved mess. 

He doesn’t remember a time when he cried like that. Not when Lily died, not when he had to kill Albus. 

_My two best friends, and they’re both dead because of me_ , he whines into the bathtub’s cool tile, where he rests his head. 

He’s so pathetic, fuck, he’s always been such a horrible person, he always wanted love, and nobody ever had enough for him, not his mum, not his dad, Lily, Albus…

He cries for a long time, circling back to his losses, and feeling sorry for himself. When his tears finally dry, he swallows a headache potion from the cupboard but sits back on the rug to curl up against the cool tiles. 

_How do I go on?_ he asks himself. 

He needs to get out, just to see if he can. He’s too cautious to believe it completely yet. But Potter on the bed was surely a sign. A sign he needs to deal with. 

He washes his face, then collects himself with a few deep breaths. 

Harry is awake, and he appears to be freshened up. He turns to him as he closes the door behind himself. 

“I’m sorry for falling asleep,” he murmurs. 

Severus smiles. The worst that came of it is a ruined deck of cards, and Severus would give five thousand of those to wake for the same sight again: Potter in his bed. 

“It’s fine.”

Potter ogles him and his eyes are so wild Severus wonders if they’re in the danger of falling out. Physically, it’s not possible, of course, but it’s an entertaining thought nevertheless. 

“You’re really different,” Harry mutters.

Severus ignores him. They’ve had this conversation a few times now. He collects his things with a flick of his wand. His insides are singing at the thought of leaving this nightmare, finally, finally. 

“I’m afraid I need to take my leave now,” he says after everything is in order, already making mental lists of what needs to be done. There is the most important, of course.

“Umm, okay.”

“Actually, could I ask a favor of you?” Severus empties the contents of his wallet on the table. “Would you mind paying for the room? I have something to do that cannot wait a minute.” 

Harry nods, raking a hand over his face and trotting to the table. “Snape, I think this is too much, how long have you been staying?”

Severus laughs, thinking his insides will combust from the joy he’s feeling. It’s done, finally. Done.

“It’s done now,” he answers, grinning. “I need to go, Potter, but I’ll be in touch. You can visit me in Staffordshire too, if I find my new responsibilities too important to leave them alone.” 

He steps closer and whispers his address into Harry’s ear. He feels it as the Fidelius Charm expands and envelops Potter, too. Harry must be feeling the same, looks at him with wide eyes. Merlin, but Severus would kiss him now if it would be appropriate. Instead, he simply says, “Have a nice Friday, Harry.” 

*

“Hello.” Severus greets Maddie quietly, maintaining the distance he knows she’s familiar with. “My name is Severus. Would you like to come and live in my house? It’s not very big, but it’s always warm and you’d have your own room and you could eat anytime you wanted.” 

The girl, breathing quickly and staring at him with wide eyes, moves a step ahead, light illuminating half of her small face. 

Severus feels a pang in his heart upon seeing her disbelieving, fearful gaze. 

“Do you have any family?” He has heard her answer seven times, but still, he needs to check.

The girl shakes her head slowly. 

Severus feels a presence at his back but it’s familiar and nonthreatening, so he doesn’t mind it. 

“How about you come with me and see if you like it? I’ll bring you back here if you choose to.”

“What about Mr. Collins?” The girl asks. It’s the first time Severus hears her voice to be more than a weak whisper.

“Who is Mr. Collins?” 

The girl moves back into the shadows, coming back a minute later, holding a skinny cat. It’s as dirty and probably flea-infested as its little guardian, but Severus recognizes this as the test it is. 

“He can come with you, there will be breakfast enough for all three of us.” 

Then Severus waits until the verdict comes, keeping his face relaxed and as inviting as he is able. She nods, after what feels like an eternity. 

“Good.” Severus acknowledges, straightening up. “We need to Apparate from here, and I’ll need you to hold onto my hand or my arm, and we both need to hold Mr. Collins. Animals don’t really like Apparition, but he’ll be all right. It’s important that you don’t let go.” 

Severus lets out a silent, slightly pathetic prayer to the universe as he turns, holding onto her and her cat. 

They all land on the grass in front of his house. Severus feels like hyperventilating but one look at his little charge’s white face is enough, and he knows he has to delay his inevitable falling apart. 

He shows her around his home and he gets some milk and cereal out on the table, preparing a little for the cat as well. 

She looks as though she belongs on his chairs, legs dangling, slurping breakfast out of her bowl. Severus is glad for his impulsive decision. If anyone’s going to look for her, he’ll provide only temporary custody. If not… they’ll see. 

In the meantime, he needs to get some parenting books, probably even some help on homelessness and its effects on child development or some tips on fostering. 

It’s an entirely different project, raising a child, than managing a shop, but Severus gave up on that idea frankly at least two hundred Thursdays ago, and he feels _sure_ about this. 

If he were a foolish Hufflepuff, he’d probably say it was fate, or “how it was meant to be.” 

But since he is himself, he only smiles inwardly, pushing Potter away from his thoughts. (He promises himself he’ll try to invite him on a date, at the very least, once they’re settled into their new routines.) 

For now, he starts composing a mental list of the things he needs to buy little Maddie. 

One thing is sure though: he’ll not go back to get his shopping done to Diagon Alley. 

_Four weeks later_

“Morning, Severus. It’s the 30th of November, Wednesday. Are you getting up to make breakfast for Maddie or should I go?”

Severus nuzzles his face (okay, mostly his nose) into Harry’s chest. 

“I don’t know, can you be trusted with the toaster?” 

Harry huffs humorously and pinches his arm. 

“That toaster of yours is the spawn of evil, I’ll have you know.”

“Feel free to bring your own,” Severus retorts, and it only hits him a second later, when his sleep-addled head recognizes how the body beside him freezes. 

They are silent for a minute, then Harry relaxes again, and puts a hand up to run it over and over Severus’s shoulder. 

It’s a very nice feeling. He loves that Potter is so touchy-feely, so generous with his affection. 

“Don’t you find it weird how…

He waits for Harry to finish, but the other man just gives a frustrated sigh. 

“—dunno, how quickly things developed, or how well we work together? Like, I just sort of fell into your bed and then I haven’t left for… I’ve been here almost a week now, Severus, constantly, and you never once asked me what I’m doing or how long I plan to…”

Severus doesn’t really want to have this conversation. It’s as if the last week he’s spent in a bubble. He was happy, he understands now. 

“You could belong here, if you wanted to.” 

“I do want to, and it’s really sudden, and that’s what unsettles me.” 

Severus gets a dark suspicion. 

“If you’re accusing me of drugging you, or…”

“No.” Harry shakes his head, cutting Severus’s worries in half. “Well, I guess I’m just wondering if it was always meant to be, or if we were heading here all along.”

Severus doesn’t believe in fate, but he chooses to stay quiet for a minute longer. 

“There is no braver man I know, no one who makes me feel so… free to be… me.”

“Oh, I thought you wanted to say aggravated.” 

“That too.” 

They share a smile. 

“But I mean…” Harry continues “Surely, there is something.”

“I spent a… a very long time locked in that day, Harry. I daresay I got to know you a little.”

“It changed you, a lot.”

“No, I doubt it did. It only made me realize I have to do a few things differently from now on, if I want my life to be better. It only opened a new chapter in my life, if you will.”

“I disagree,” Harry argues quietly. “The day I remember, you were already very different. That’s why I stayed with you for so long, because I wanted to understand if I’d misjudged you completely, or it was all just Snape the spy, that you showed while you were my teacher. And the next morning, after you said… I followed you, obviously. And how you talked to Maddie, how kind you were, and… I couldn’t believe it, not until you explained.”

“Oh, you mean until Granger explained for the second time,” Severus nips in gleefully.

“Okay, she’s my ‘what emotions mean and how they work’ go-to person. A shame you never had one,” Harry snips back playfully, which Severus obviously cannot let go unchallenged, so he pulls back from Harry’s chest to put enough distance between them for a rate 4 glare. Not much greater, because he feels soft ridiculous niceties for this man in the place where his heart is, and as such, he hazards that Harry will never again be the recipient of another full-blown Snape Glare. Well, maybe, if the quality of his insults develops. They trade a few unhurried kisses.

“But I need to tell them, soon,” Harry mutters, fidgeting uncomfortably. “They’re already wondering why I’m always too busy to meet nowadays.”

Severus imagines their faces, their reactions. They will be appalled, disgusted, disapproving, no doubt. But that will change when they see how Harry smiles at him, day after day. Severus knows it will be fine. As long as time moves forward, everything will be fine.

**Author's Note:**

> Please leave a comment here or at [Livejournal](https://snape-potter.livejournal.com/3776873.html), [Insanejournal](http://asylums.insanejournal.com/snape_potter/1711687.html), or [Dreamwidth](https://snape-potter.dreamwidth.org/1023036.html).
> 
> EDIT: I am extremely pleased to announce that the wonderful hippocrates460 wrote a brilliant sequel to this story. If you are curious how Severus deals with his days out of the time-loop, how his relationship progresses with Harry and Maddie, make sure to check it out, and give it all your love. :)  
> You can find Some tenderness in the Snarry_a_thon18 Collections, or at this link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14396466  
> Thanks! :)


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